Elements of Success 



KINGDOM OF EVIL. 



BY 

A. S. KEDZIE, 

Pastok of the Congkegational Chtjeoh in Dexjtee^ Michigan. 

7 (S 



BOSTON: 
CONGREGATIONAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY. 
1873„ 




ALFKED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 

S4 SCHOOL STREET, BOSTOK. 




TO 

TWO NAMESAKES, 
WHO IN THE OTHER LEARNED PROFESSIONS 

HAVE SHOWN THAT 

LIFE CAN BE AN ELEMENT OF SUCCESS 

IN THE 

KINGDOM OP CHRIST, 
TEIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY 

The Author. 



PREFACE. 



It is thought the following discussion can find fit place 
in the present state of religious inquiry, and may help to 
a clearer view of the contest which fills so largely past 
ages and the present. No one can understand society in 
the particulars and aggregate of its action till he finds it a 
strife between opposite moral forces ; nor till then can 
understand the meaning of history. 

What is here offered only starts an inquiry which the 
Christian thinker will push further. Attempt is made to 
handle only the moye obvious and proximate Elements of 
Sin's Success. Others, as eflflcient, lie not far off: as, 
Hierarchism, Political Corruption, Materialism, Secret 
Organizations, Corrupt Literature, Weak Tone of the 
Moral Convictions expressed in Civil Law, and the 
Antagonism held between Capital and Labor. Of these, 
the Author has not treated because incompetent to do so 
to his satisfaction, and because thereby unable to keep 
the discussion within desired limits. 

The standpoint is historic, not prophetic. Evil is held 
to have such Success as history and the present condition 
of society certify, — only partial, because weak compared 
with opposing strength, yet terrible hitherto and now. 
This meagre review of Sin's forces and modes gives no 
full view of the contest ; nor can this be had till sight is 
gained b^ the Elements of Final and Triumphant Success 
found in the Kingdom of Christ, some thoughts on which 
will be offered as soon as the press of other duties permits. 

A. S. K. 

DowAGiAC, Michigan, January, 1873. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

PAGE 

Statement of the Case . , 9 

CHAPTER n. 

The Situation 16 

CHAPTER ni. 

Stifled Conviction of Immortality » .... 25 
CHAPTER IV. 

Minifaction of Sin ,31 

CHAPTER Y. 

Province claimed by Sm 43 

CHAPTER VI. 

Sin Respectable in its Show ....... 53 

CHAPTER VII. 
Concealments of Sin 63 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Spiritual Indiscrimination , , , 75 

CHAPTER IX, 

Perverted Mental Action . . ... 88 



viii 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER X. 

PA&E 

Misconceived Unnattjkalness of Eeligion . . . 100 

CHAPTER XI. 

Denial of Eternal Eetribution 113 

CHAPTER XII. 
Denial of Divine Forgiveness 126 

CHAPTER Xin. 
Dominance of Social Institutions 141 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Inadequate Philosophy of Evil 153 

CHAPTER XV. 

Practical Disbelief in God 164 

CHAPTER XVr. 
Fury of the Passions . 176 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Power of Talk .191 

CHAPTER XVni. 
Levels reached or not 204 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Idolatry of Genius 218 

CHAPTER XX. 
Personal History and Character ...... 233 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



CHAPTER I. 

STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 

ACCEPTING Moral Evil as a fact, we iuquire into 
its success hitherto. The origin of Evil, so long 
debated, is perhaps as well understood as it can be, 
till studied amid the disclosures of a future state. 
Passing that by, we take the situation as we find it, 
and raise the question. Why Evil, against reason and 
revelation, against the best welfare of soul and soci- 
ety, should come to a success so respectable? Even 
apart from its bearing on the destiny of the soul, 
simply as a fact of society. Evil in its extent and 
success hitherto is worthy of profoundest study. 

The destructive tendencies of Moral Evil, its op- 
pugnance to all that reason affirms and revelation dis- 
closes as good, may be readily seen in every show 
Evil makes of itself. Religion pronounces what ex- 
perience has clearly demonstrated : that the duty is 
also the interest of men ; that both for the individ- 
ual and for society, it is better to be just, honorable, 
and benevolent, than to be unjust, base, and cruel ; 
that the laws of God are the only modes of gaining 
highest welfare ; that it is folly to sacrifice an endless 
future of good for present gratifications which leave 

2 



10 



SUCCESS OF Em. 



a sting of regret. It is easy to show that no man 
should subject the high aspirations of his soul to low 
passions and gross animalism ; and men from the 
first, through all generations and lands, should have 
striven for the highest nobility in intelligence and 
virtue. 

When we turn away from these grand possibilities 
lying before men, and look at the record of history, 
or at the present state of the world, the extent of 
Evil overwhelms the mind with wonder and sadness. 
To get any intelligent and profound conviction of the 
sinfulness of the world, fills the mind with dread and 
horror. Why do not the nations arrest their mad 
folly, cover themselves with sackcloth, and mourn 
for the miseries they have brought upon themselves ? 
Who can look upon the wave of guilt rolling down 
through the ages and deluging the earth to-day, 
bearing to all lands and homes the wretchedness in- 
flicted by selfishness, hatred, ambition, avarice, in- 
temperance, libertinism, w^ar, slavery, and their long 
list of crimes, and not, in anguish of heart, groan 
out, This is dreadful? Then, if he shall make closer 
inspection, searching into the interior experience of 
men for all manifold diversities and shadings of guilt 
and sorrow, what intensity of language can utter his 
convictions ! 

He has no eyes who does not see this misery ; no 
heart who does not weep over it. If such can be 
found, there sin shows its completest work, which is 
the completest wreck. If worse were done with hu- 
manity, what else could it be than to have sin rage 
and ravage as now? 



STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 



11 



Were Evil found only in some obscure corner of 
the earth, where frigid clime and niggard nature had 
pinched man with their sorest stress, or where igno- 
rance had kept in concealment the grand possibilities 
of human nature, or only in some particular age in 
which it had stood out as an anomaly beyond all 
reach of solution, it might have passed as a simple 
marvel. But it has overspread the earth, in Chris- 
tian lands and heathen, in extremest climes, and 
vv^here man finds best conditions for developm.ent. 
It has occupied all the spaces of history, even where 
clearest light has shone and highest civilization been 
reached. Even when culture hides the grossness of 
sin, it is only to give it new fascination, power, and 
prevalence in highest levels of society. It pervades 
society as an atmosphere, surging like a storm around 
all homes, everywhere scattering misery and keeping 
alive wretchedness. It wastes like a demon, letting 
no heart escape its sting, and multiplyiiig its thrusts 
with the days, till all hearts ache and all eyes weep. 
Down through all ages, abroad in all lands, so it has 
been and^it is to-day. 

There may be said to be a Kingdom of Evil, as 
there is a Kingdom of Righteousness: each opposed 
to the other ; each organized and in contest for 
ascendency. So in this world : how much further, 
it matters not at present. The Kingdom of Right- 
eousness is organized in the Divine Sovereignty at its 
head, in its laws of morals, mind, and matter, in the 
church, and all just institutions of society. In his- 
tory are seen its organized procedures. So the King- 
dom of Evil, in its historical record and witnessed 



12 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



working, is best understood by supposing a similar 
organization, less perfect, since its very principles for- 
bid wise administration and true loyalty. It has no 
great truths or sweet affinities to bind men together 
in constancy and fellowship. 

Yet such a vast aggregation of bad minds, how- 
ever false to each other, having similar aims, come 
into modes of action which are an organized method, 
an institute. Nothing can be done so generally and 
continuously without falling into an organizing meth- 
od« Knowledge and skill gained by long experience 
give efficiency in wrong as in right. If, thereby, some 
revolters against the Divine Rule, of such transcend- 
ent genius and reckless apostacy as to dare rivalship 
with God, though often supplanted by intrigue of 
others, should nevertheless perpetuate an administra- 
tion under one dynasty or another, imbue others 
with their spirit, inspire methods of wrong action, 
or merely provoke imitation in evil, it would neces- 
sarily involve an organization, not only as necessary 
to its ends, but because organized methods could not 
be excluded. 

Evil, as it works in this world, affords illustration. 
When tyrants get into power, possible even in 
democracies ; when stock-jobbers override all prin- 
ciples of commercial integrity ; when leaders of 
fashion give new impulse, larger expenditure, and a 
fresh abandonment to spendthrift ways, by capri- 
ciously changing the costumes of society, its style of 
living, and ways of amusement ; or, in a particular 
community, some gain influence, inaugurate new 
methods of corruption, and set many in a drift to 



STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 



13 



ruin, — they act upon a method which shows organi- 
zation, even if not consciously planned. Such effi- 
ciency is shown, such wrong sway given to public 
morals, as bespeaks strength. Things are done, 
ends accomplished, that lie beyond the reach of indi- 
vidual effort. The modes they inaugurate become an 
institute of society. 

The Scriptures give warrant for what we would 
infer from observation. The principalities and pow- 
ers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual 
wickedness in high places, against which the King- 
dom of Eighteousness wrestles in warfare ; the prince 
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh 
in the children of disobedience, whatever more they 
may be, indicate a malign force and agency, whose 
directness of aim, so long continued, necessarily in- 
volves an organization, however often disrupted as 
to personal administration by intestine disloyalty. 

The Kingdom of Evil has not yet had full hearing. 
However possible at any time its subjects may be put 
to writhing under conviction of their wrong, yet 
respite of condemnation is also possible, as human 
experience in sin shows. Such are the delusions of 
sin, that resort may be had even to justification. 
And in this we can conceive that autonomy 
without law may be the principle of that Kingdom ; 
that in revolt against Divine Kule, they advocate 
and defend the right of each to follow his own will, 
even to the extent of a disintegrating individualism. 
If this should seem to take away the foundation of 
organization, it befits the inconsistencies of sin to 
disown the application of its own principles, and if 



14 



[SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



power can be grasped, to maintaia organization by 
the severities of tyranny. But however held to- 
gether, it is in the nature of the Kingdom of Evil to 
organize. If there be no personal chieftain at its 
head, no allegiance, loyalty, or order in Evil, yet 
even autonomic anarchy must have modes of action, 
varied, yet only to be repeated and thereby becom- 
ing a method. The fixed array of bad minds neces- 
sarily holds them to methods that are organic. 

Whatever Omnipotence might do in clearing the 
universe of all resistance, such use of his power 
seems not to be God's method. He treats his crea- 
tures according to the natures he has given them. 
For dead matter he has physical force ; animals he 
handles by imperious instincts ; but moral beings, 
made to be governed by truth, to be ruled by right, 
to be won by love, to be warned by the prean- 
uounced consequences of revolt, and made to have 
fellowship of thought and feeling with himself, he 
addresses as standing on that high level. He gives 
them autonomy under law, refuses to push them 
with compulsions, but handles them with a gentleness 
that would make them great. And when the bad 
have reached eternal confirmation in character, as all 
moral beings must, it may be one of the necessary 
pains of their hell that he will not let them drop 
from this high dignity. 

Constituted of such elements, imbued with such a 
spirit, and organized on such principles, clearly the 
Kingdom of Evil should have dragged from the be- 
ginning and have come to a speedy and ignominious 
failure. In whatever world found, it is an unpar- 



STAIEMEKT OF THE CASE. 



15 



donable impertinence. In opposition to truth and 
right, against reason and conscience, opposed to best 
welfare both of soul and society, perverting all hi;j:h- 
est powers in man ; but, most of all, disputing the 
legitimacy of God's Eule, contemning his justice, 
rejecting his love, trying his patience, grieving his 
heart, and crucifying his Son ; such a Kingdom of 
Evil not only should not be, but, existing from the 
first, should have proved an abortion, and not even 
come to any conspicuousness of failure. And when ^ 
great enough to be in ftijl opposition to God's King- 
dom of Righteousness, its management by finite minds 
should have doomed it to sure and speedy over- 
throw. 

Xever did results so disappoint expectation. In- 
stead of abortive failure, the Kingdom of Evil has 
come to a success not only respectable, but as nigh 
perfect as the infirmity of finiteness permits to any- 
thing it touches. If, in the record of history, any 
success is to be found, it is in the growth and sway 
of this Kino'dom. Not even the Kino:dom of Eio:ht- 
eousness makes show of such success. Its greater 
success is yet in promise and prophecy. Whatever 
faith may see in the deeper under-currents of history, 
the plainest things upon its record are the doings 
and triumphs of the Kingdom of Evil. Here we see 
moving the masses of Earth's population ; their 
intensified activities ; their interest, occupancy, and 
complete absorption. When the Epic of Evil comes 
to be written in quantities, numbers, and achieve- 
ments, history will furnish material for showing a suc- 
cess greater than the human mind has yet conceived. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE SITUATION. 

MAN has the power of non-consent. It does not 
therefore impugn the omnipotence and benevo- 
lence of God that sin exists. Certainly, God desires 
no such result. It is against his will, against every 
attribute of his infinitely pure and beneficent char- 
acter. He has created moral and accountable souls, 
incident to the peril of sin through non-consent, rather 
than create only material things to be governed and 
run as machines under the law of absolute force, or 
to make merely animals to be handled by imperious 
instincts. Himself an intelligent and moral being, 
it would be no sufficient pleasure to him to have 
merely a kingdom of matter, though the worlds move 
in harmony inconceivably beautiful, or to rule only a 
brute creation. 

He has created beings that can have fellowship of 
thought and feeling with himself, capable of moral 
and intellectual reciprocities. If from this high level 
they fall, he may still have it, as an end sought, to 
bring them under the sway of such principles, on 
through such an experience, as will finally clear them 
from the dominion and damage of sin, if they will 



THE SITUATION. 



17 



only consent ; without which, from the nature of the 
case, it would be impossible. 

Not the final completion of God's plan, but the 
present situation, is now the matter for study. Sin 
embodied in sinners, personated in so many fallen 
beings, has become a tremendous power, pervading 
society, corrupting it, blending and bewildering the 
minds of men, practically an organized force, a King- 
dom of Evil opposed to the Kingdom of Christ. To 
maintain this opposition, to open some chance of suc- 
cess, what fashioning of our surroundings might we 
naturally and reasonably expect the forces of Evil 
would inaugurate and maintain? Before taking up 
that question, let us stay a little to fix in mind some 
conviction of the personality of sin, — to many a 
mere abstraction, if not a myth. 

There is something tremendously real in this King- 
dom of Sin, seen geographically or historically. All 
the world's most prominent affairs, its outward and 
visible concerns, sin has shaped and handled through 
all the ages of history. To-day, sin in the main holds 
them in possession the world over. Here and there 
a rare Christian man is found, who has brought all 
his affairs into the Kingdom of Christ. Not his 
heart alone, but his entire powers ; not his Sabbaths, 
but his week-days also ; not his religious observances, 
but as totally his daily toil, — he holds and handles 
for Christ. Maintaining his abode or removing else- 
where, the whole line of business he shall follow, its 
method arid extent, his action in social life, every- 
thing with him is determined by a conscious and in- 
telligent reference to the bearing it will have on his 



18 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



personal piety, the religious welfare of his family, 
the success of the church, and the salvation of the 
world. But the world knows not such men, and may 
be even incredulous as to their existence, — counting 
a description of such characters a fiction of fancy. 
The men of the world are in no level where they 
^AAM^ can see Christians ; so their denials are natural 
enough. Even when admitted to be legitimate and 
normal characters, how few they seem, — wellnigh 
lost beyond discovery in the vast aggregate of hu- 
manity ; in any assemblage, how few ; in how many, 
none at all ! 

The great bulk of humanity belongs to the King- 
dom of Sin. These are they who transact the vast 
aggregate of the world's business, hold its capital, 
prosecute its enterprises, push its adventures, incite 
its industries, fill its offices, and control its govern- 
ment. It is with these interests that the newspapers 
are filled. These enterprises occupy the world's 
incessant talk. Far away into forests, deep down 
into mines, abroad on the oceans, or m^id steam and 
smoke and din of factories, these interests are 
pushed. Over broad territories, along the valleys, 
up the hill-sides into the interior of the mountains, 
and far off into the depth of the sea, with insane 
eagerness and crazy fanaticism the enterprises of self- 
ish and sinful greed are pushed. A sad spectacle ! 
grandest show of folly! — relieved of sadness, to 
those who feel it, only by the mitigating conviction 
of final overrulement to the true ends of humanity 
and God ! 

Men go eagerly into these enterprises of gain and 



THE SITUATION. 



19 



into these schemes of ambition as into pursuit of 
pleasure. Energy is stimulated, time used; what 
else would be weariness and a burden brings gratifi- 
cation. Curiosity is whetted, thought is quickened, 
ingenuity put to task, evolution of risks watched 
with eager interest, hopes brighten and fade to 
brighten again, success comes within reach, and vic- 
tories are gained. How satisfactory ! Life within 
such bounds seems to them full-orbed. 

And they not merely rest satisfied in these ways 
of worldly delight, content to have all their powers 
put to such use, and putting to such use all things 
within their control ; but they refuse to be turned 
out of their ways, to be lifted to any other level, 
even if countenanced by the company of entire hu- 
manity. They would not have all the world wake 
up to-morrow Christian, — as earnestly and devoted 
Christian as the holiest ever were. Tliey would feel 
awkward, unassured, uncertain how matters would 
turn; what success they would likely reach. iS^o, 
they want affairs to go in their wonted ways. They 
have a use for the world and humanity as they now 
find them. Their plans are adjusted to the present 
state of affairs. Present conditions meet their wants. 
How many, for example, live by the pride of others I 

Take out of commerce what simply ministers to 
pride ; shut up all manufactories which supply such 
material ; turn adrift the artisans thus employed ; 
withdraw the capital thus invested ; and how would 
the world's affairs be deranged ! Many live by the 
world's passions and lusts. Take simply two, in- 
temperance and licentiousness, still leaving a large 



20 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



list. In gratification of these two, how much capital 
and how many persons find employment ! Crush out 
intemperance and licentiousness to-day, and in what 
deranged state would the world's afiairs be found on 
the morrow ! 

With what cruel determination is the love of gain 
prosecuted. If helpless operatives are in body 
crushed down to the level next above starvation, 
and their minds to a still lower level ; if the lives of 
men are imperilled by insecure railroads, dangerous 
factories or steamers, or in coal mines with only one 
entrance ; if the construction of a Panama railroad 
within set time costs many lives to the mile, — what 
matter? ask these men intent on gain. And the 
same questions they ask, if their ways of gain bring 
all the ruin which gambling, intemperance, and har- 
lotry can work. 

Take the lust of power, political and ecclesiastical, 
as recorded in history. If, by impressment to fill 
the ranks of armies, families are separated ; if battles 
leave the ground strewed with dead and dying ; if 
countries are desolated, cities sacked ; if starvation 
and plague follow in the train, — what matter? if the 
throne of empire is only reached ! What if men arc 
imprisoned for their faith, put to the rack, or burned 
at the stake ? so that hierarchy can hold sway ! 

Sin a myth? The kingdom of sin a chimera? 
What more tremendously real and more portentous of 
evil can be found ? In such a kingdom every sinner 
is a citizen, thoroughly loyal to its principles, deter- 
mined that its policy shall not be interfered with, 
that its enterprises shall go on and its power be main- 



THE SITUATION. 



21 



tained. They have put all their investments into 
it, bound all interests to it. Nothing would so stir 
their wrath, or provoke them to such resistance, as an 
array of Christian influences, threatening a speedy 
overthi'ow of the Kingdom of Evil. It would outdo 
the ten persecutions paganism brought against the 
early Christian church. 

There is more in the Kingdom of Evil than the 
extent of its business and the hostility of its spirit. 
No full sense can be got of its reality without look- 
ing at its organic completeness. Were it disintegrated 
bulk, it would present stout resistance, like an im- 
passable snow-drift to a railway train. But it has 
correlations, affiliations, and adhesions that give it 
strength. It has an unscrupulous coherence, is not 
troubled with being particular, but accepts whatever 
will debauch and ruin men, whether by little or much. 
Custom has established methods in the conduct of 
business, pervading all its ranges, yet clearlj'seen to 
be in the interests of sin. The world expects to 
violate its own rules of conduct. Usage gives sin 
respectability. Custom gives strength, as drill does 
to an army. The wonted ways of the world are an 
organizing force in the Kingdom of Evil. 

As in business so in social life. Its customs open 
ways of tampering with temperance, veracity, and 
virtue ; so come drunkenness, embezzlement, and 
seduction. Fashion, another organizing element in 
society, helps in the same way. Stated in abstract 
generality, this in look amounts to little. Could we 
gather up the published and unpublished illustrations 
found in any month's history, see the instances of 



22 



SUCCESS OF EUL. 



ruin by intemperance, by frauds, by blighted affec- 
tions, and seductions, for which the Tray vras prepared 
b}^ the fashions and customs of society, it would be 
obvious hoTT these had become elements of oro'aniza- 
tion in the Kingdom of Evil. Tricks, deceits, knav- 
eries in business, cheats in manufacture and deal are 
excused because of custom. Affections are tampered 
with in social life, purity sullied, the imagination 
corrupted, passions inflamed, and the young ruined 
by customs of intercourse, b}' fashions in dress, by 
talk, demeanor, flirtations, late hours, promiscuous 
assemblies in ball-rooms, and in ways too numerous 
for recital. In these what sin has not found excuse? 

Further on there is more. Methods de\dsed and 
customs adopted in politics to give utterance to pub- 
lic sentiment, as in the caucus system, are perverted 
by neglect of some and chicanery of others to per- 
sonal ambition and part}^ corruption. So in legisla- 
tures, and even in courts of justice, defences of 
liberty and right are made to shield crimes and set 
criminals free. TTrong claims rights in this world, 
and even respectability. In civil and social life it 
has taken possession of custom. The usages of poli- 
tics, jurisprudence, commerce, manufactures, and of 
trade, the fashions of social life and its modes of in- 
tercourse, have been appropriated by the Kingdom of 
Evil in accomplishing its ends. Herein it has an 
organic completeness, without which it would have 
only the weakness to which it is entitled. 

Such is that Kingdom of Evil, which is in posses- 
sion of the world, and justifies its right of possession 
by long inheritance. A Kingdom of Evil it is, which 



THE SITUATION. 



23 



could not have been excluded, save by a necessity 
which would have excluded the opposing Kingdom 
of Righteousness, by remanding us to the control of 
absolute force, as are the materialities of nature. A 
Kingdom of Evil it is, organized, resistant, consent- 
ing to no encroachment, and restricted from universal 
prevalence only by the opposing Kingdom of Christ. 

The question arises. How comes this Kingdom of 
Evil to such success ? Existing under the disadvan- 
tage of being against reason, conscience, justice, and 
righteousness, against all that conserves, blesses, and 
beautifies society, against all that exalts and ennobles 
the soul; opposed to all the securities of business, 
to the growth of substantial prosperity, and to tran- 
quillity under civil law ; militant against the soul's 
eternal welfare ; in conflict with God's Kingdom of 
Righteousness, joy, peace, and salvation,— how comes 
the Kingdom of Evil to a success so respectable and 
pervasive? In other words, put to organizing such a 
kingdom, what elements would one incorporate in it 
to give it success ? 

It would be a cheap answer to say. Secure the fall 
of our race into sin, and the success of the Kingdom 
of Evil is secured. We wish to carrj^ this discussion 
to a remove from this central point, to brini^ it nearer 
to the consciousness and experience of men. Indeed, 
the question is not, how men came into their present 
position, — whether by the fall of our first parents, or 
by sinning in some former and forgotten state of ex- 
istence, — nor what their degree of debasement. All 
questions, as to how the Kingdom of Evil came to be, 
are passed by. We simply inquire as to the facts of 



24 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



actual history. We look into our surroundings to 
find sedatives by which men are made content with 
the life, and stimulants by which they are prompted 
to the courses they pursue. We inquire for the 
elements of success in the Kingdom of Evil. 



CHAPTER III. 



STIFLED CONVICTION OF IMMORTALITY. 

NE element of success would be incorporated in 



V-/ the Kingdom of Evil by banishing a practical 
and controlling faith in a future state of existence. 
Let the horizon of life shut down close around us ; 
so that, beyond the circumference of this world and 
the goal of the grave, there was nothing with which 
we had to do ; that the matters of practical concern 
with us lie within such narrow boundary, and faw 
forces of God's Kingdom of Righteousness, none of 
its saving influences, would reach us. In such un- 
belief as to the future state we would be in "best 
condition to take readily to all the incentives, mid 
indulgences sin might offer. 

If this great party, this malign, portentous^ and 
tremendously real Kingdom of Sin, that plies so 
strenuous an opposition to the Kingdom of God, 
could only succeed in banishing all practical belief 
in immortality, men would be in a state of ready 
acceptance to all the proposals of sin that did noi . 
involve immediate danger. And minds UBaceus- 
tomed to any outlook upon immortality would be 
blinded to the remoter perils of sin that coim m this 




3 



26 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



life. These they cannot see, unless they look far 
enough mto the soul's histoiy to gain some vision of 
immortaiity. 

But this denial or even obliviousness of a future 
state is not easily gained. To beget it, earnest long-- 
ings have to be quenched and noble ambitions smit- 
ten down. No one, at all aware of the capacities of 
the soul, would consent to annihilation. The sick 
child that could not consent to die, because he 
wanted to see the days and know how the things 
go on, uttered an infantile feeling, whose maturity 
demands immortality. Sin can secure an imbrute- 
ment that shall quench high aspirations and the am- 
bition to make the most of one's self. Souls can be 
narrowed, dwarfed, and let down to so low a level 
as to care only for what the senses use. Held in 
such conditions, no longing will be felt, no ambitions 
raised, stirring their hopes to take hold on immor- 
tality. 

To have the conviction of immortality stifled, more 
than such debasement is needful. There needs to be 
a forgetfulness of the most obvious facts of our con- 
dition. The changes through which we here pass 
foretoken just so grand an issue. Comparing the 
helplessness of our infancy with the vigor of our ma- 
turity, we. find it a law of human life that we pass 
throua'h continuous chancres, each constitutiuo: some 
new and richer development. Not more different 
from its callow state is the full-fledged bird, or the 
butterfly from the chrysalis, than mature age from 
infancy. Immortality only completes former prog- 
ress. The strong probability of such an issue m.ust 



STIFLED C02TVICTI0N OF IMMORTALITY. 27 

be broken clown before we can reach unbelief in a 
future state. 

In like manner, all the arguments for immortality 
would have to be laid aside, doing violence not less 
to reason than to revelation. Curiosity, a hunger 
for knowledge, a desire to make the most of one's 
self, the divine instinct of immortality must be sup- 
pressed, and man degrade himself to the brnte level, 
to banish belief in a future life. This is diificult of 
accomplishment, since, outside of revelation, there is 
so broad and firm a foundation for belief in a future 
state ; all the more difficult, since there is a grand 
inspiration in the belief, which has much to do with 
, every-day life. 

Were we to look at the warrant there is for this 
belief, and at the place it is to fill in the main de- 
sign and minutiae of a man's life, we would say that 
he could not forget this transcendent fact of his con- 
dition, surely not for a day ; that an ever-present 
conviction of it would run through his daily history, 
at least that it would have advisement with him at 
every turn in life. Considering the make of the 
soul, its history, surroundings, and prospects, it is 
difficult to see how a belief in immortality could be 
pushed aside or made inoperative. 

Yet just this is to be done, if the Kingdom of 
Evil reach any success, make any room for itself, and 
work with any efficiency. In organizing a Kingdom 
of Evil for the ruin of souls and to stand militant 
against God's Kingdom of Salvation, a first and chief 
thing will be to stifle the conviction of immortality, 
so that it shall have no practical influence in the 



28 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



plans and procedures of life. This is necessary to a 
thoroughly organized Kingdom of Evil. If, every 
day, men had a deep conviction, that close at hand 
lies an immortal state which they were soon to enter, 
to find it what foregone life had made it ; with such 
a clear outlook upon immortality, the enchantment 
of sin would be broken ; there would be no room for 
the play of its incentives, no thirst for its stimu- 
lants, no chance for the arousal of its terrible pas- 
sions, and no possibility for a day's forgetfulness of 
the soul's welfare. 

But the Kingdom of Evil is in no such jeopardy. 
Somehow, in ways utterly inexplicable, yet surely, 
the sense of immortality is deadened, the conviction 
of a future state stifled. This is a fact of the human 
condition open to any one's observation. Men who 
by process of argument can readily be brought to 
affirm their undisputed belief in a future state, live 
through days and weeks without any thought of it. 
Such an one can go to the sanctuary and not say. 
Soon I shall be through with this ; soon have in open 
vision the things I here so dimly see. Memorable 
days of the year, anniversaries of birth may come, 
and he not say to himself, Soon for me these will 
pass, and I go on to my eternal manhood. He may 
rise up from a bed of sickness, without thinking that 
sometime soon a very difierent result will ensue. 
He may watch a thousand sunsets without saying. 
Soon and surely the sun of my life will set. A thou- 
sand sunrisings may gladden his vision, and he not 
think to say. Some morning, soon, the light of an 
eternal day will shine around me. He lays plans 



STIFLED CONVICTION OF IMMORTALITY. 29 



without the conviction that others must complete 
them, and begins enterprises ^Yithout thought that 
other hands must finish them when his lose their 
skill. 

So we find it along the marts of business, in shops 
and stores, on the streets, and in the homes of men. 
This is the world in which they live, without thought 
or care for any other. The vast mass of minds is 
sunk too low to gain any so grand and inspiring an 
outlook. With the vast majority of men the sense 
of a future state is dead, the conviction of immortal- 
ity stifled. Not a whisper of it in talk, not a thought 
of it in mind, nor a sense of it in the heart. 

All this is not against the Bible merely, nor against 
the well-grounded convictions of nature, but against 
the oft-repeated witness of death. A man looks upon 
a neighbor's face in the coflin, without thought that 
the same or other neighbors will thus look upon his 
coffined remains. He helps lay a friend's body away 
tenderly in the tomb with no sense of the fact that 
the same service will soon be done for him. In the 
s of men he can miss the dead without inqilir- 
ins:, How soon shall I be missed? Of those who die 
of disease, adult life is seldom reached without some 
predisposition to the disease which will close their 
earthly career. It may make unmistakable show of 
itself, as the agent of that coming transformation, 
and yet this premonitory sufi'ering be tranced to no 
issue. For years of life he travels in close compan- 
ionship, perhaps in conflict, with his final conqueror, 
without thought of the result. 

Nor against instinct of nature merely, or fact of 



30 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



observation, is this delusion, this strange oblivion to 
the most momentous fact of the human condition ; 
but equally is it against the most ennobling and en- 
trancing inspiration that can stir a man. That the 
mystery of life is soon to be explained to him, he 
soon to be free from the body^ ai^ spirit with a uni- 
verse to range in, soon to greet foregone friends and 
to see the Divine One, — if these grand realities, or 
possibilities, are not the most entrancing inspira- 
tions and stir not the noblest aspirations, what can he 
be than a brute, imless he be a stone? 

Wisely organized is this Kingdom of Evil, with 
means adjusted to ends. It makes not only possible, 
but sure, the ruin it seeks. What might be counted 
impracticable, to seduce souls from loyalty to God 
and make them reckless of best welfare, it can do. 
The forces that control it have gathered up the wis- 
dom of long ages and the skill of wide experience. 
They have taken possession of business, of pleasure, 
of all schemes of ambition and all enterprises of life, 
and have held these so persistently and closely before 
men, that they gain no practical insight into life's 
meaning, nor any outlook upon life's results. So 
they stumble on, hoodwinked, to whatever is en- 
trancing or terrible in the near-by immortality. 

Assuredly, with direct conduciveness to its end, 
works this Kingdom of Evil, shielding men from 
alarms, cutting off the most entrancing views of life, 
and suppressing the most quickening inspirations. 
Any system less than this would be nothing. Take 
away this one cheat, give all men a clear and daily 
outlook upon immortality, and at the end of a brief 
campaign the Kingdom of Evil would fall. 



CHAPTEE lY. 



THE MINIFACTION OF SIX. 

IT is conceivable that a man may have a profound 
respect for the Devil, using that term either as 
representing a malign personage, or as personifying 
the Powers of Evil. We can have a respect for what 
we do not approve. It may not even make a successful 
appeal to our admiration. In war, an enemy, though 
engaged in a wrong cause and defending false princi- 
ples, may nevertheless show a heroism, intrepidity, 
and fortitude, that command our respect. Let en- 
thusiasm call out large armies, which leave behind 
all the comforts of home, subject themselves to the 
hardships of camp life, to all the fatigues of march, 
pass bravely into battle, and there manfully strive for 
victory, not yielding till many a field is lost, — their 
deep convictions and daring -courage command our 
respect. 

In the war of the Eebellion, the Southern States 
assembled armies of such gigantic proportions, they 
sacrificed so much, held out so persistently against 
superior forces, were so undaunted in defeat, and 
extricated themselves so often from what threatened 
to be a total overthrow, that for their skill and 



32 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



bravery, at least, they commanded the respect of the 
world, and even of the North. 

There is a greater Kebellion than that which our 
arms overthrew in bringing to naught the Southern 
Confederacy, — a Eebellion founded on more destruc- 
tive principles and maintained against greater odds. 
In its contests physical force is not in place, else 
Omnipotence would speedily crush it. The adher- 
ents of each contesting party are held to allegiance 
only by choice, and can be brought over to the oppo- 
site side only by choice. It is a contest for moral 
ascender^cy. 

The final issue has not come. We have waked 
into being in time to see the contest go on. In the 
history of the universe this is the era of war. The 
Kingdom of Eighteousness and the Kingdom of Evil 
are in conflict for ascendency over every soul 
throughout the world. How much larger the field 
of conflict, we know not. This is the sublimest 
thing going on in the world ; the most comprehen- 
sive, for it includes all things. Nothing is, nothing 
transpires, but as a part of this contest. Every man 
has his place in one of these kingdoms or the other. 
If it is not so in conscious intent, it is nevertheless 
so in fact. This contest is the grandest thing of his- 
toric record. 

In such conditions, what might we expect to find? 
We inquire further for elements of success in the 
Kingdom of Evil. To stifle the conviction of immor- 
tality, might seem enough ; yet there is more. No 
one nor a few elements of success fully meet the 
case. A Kingdom so thoroughly organized, of such 



THE MINIFACTION OF SIN. 33 

wide sweep and far-reaching aims, can depend on no 
one element of success. What else might we expect 
to find? 

The Minifaction of Sin. Let sin be held as a 
trifle: let the distinction between holiness and sin,, 
between sinful and Christian life, be compounded, so' 
that a man feels there is no difference between Chris- 
tians and sinners, except that the former are a little 
more circumspect, if not hypocritical, and that man 
is established in the Kingdom of Evil. Multiply 
this, till an entire community is befogged in this 
blunder, and in that community the Kingdom of Evil 
is a success. Simply as a prudent economy in com- 
mercial and social relations, as a wiser policy for 
this life, men may forbid certain things and require 
others. So come commercial and social virtues. 
These may be chiefly to do well by themselves in this 
life. All this may be made, though very inconsis- 
tently, to harmonize with a denial of the difierence 
between holiness and sin. 

To deny this distinction, and for this to minify 
sin, to hold it as a trifle, is not easily done. Con- 
science is against it. That voice of God in the soul, 
whenever heard, proclaims an eternal and irrecon- 
cilable diflference between holiness and sin. Reason 
consents not to such confoundiug of moral judgments. 
It affirms, not only that all significant conduct is 
either holy or sinful, right or wrong, but that the 
highest culmination of moral activity — the greatest 
thing a man can do — is a righteous or sinful act. 
Herein are the real and positive things of life. 

The witnessed things of life, its current history. 



34 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



deny and protest against this disposition to count sin 
a trifle. Take any well-defined instaDce of it ; for 
example, follow through the history of intemperance, 
see all its sights of wretchedness, hear all its sounds 
of woe, weep over its miseries, tremble at its guilt, 
nauseate at its disgusts, be in horror at its cruelties, 
indignant at its wrongs, and vengeful at its crimes ; 
and what is found in it? !N^othing criminal, nothing 
revolting, cruel, horrible, or wretched, save as sin is 
in it. Take the one element of sin out of it. and 
there would be left no suflerings, no wrongs, cruel- 
ties, bestialities, or demonism. 

Go from the freedom of society, this liberty of 
self-management, from the cheer of homes and the 
sweet affinities of fellowship, down to the restraints 
and repellancies of a penitentiary ; and what makes 
the difference? Only sin, and the consequent hand- 
ling men are compelled to give it. Sin can make 
any what these convicts are. Take the best men 
known, and the worst ; and what makes the differ- 
ence? Only sin. That worst man may have sinned 
not merely against God's moral law, but also against 
all laws for the training of mind, the management of 
the body, and the conservation of the social order ; 
but as the worst man, he is only the man fullest of 
sin. 

We all know something of war, — some by actual 
participation, all by reading and the anxieties we 
have felt. We know what hardships are met, what 
sufferings, yea, agonies, are endured on the march, 
in camp, on battle-field, in hospital, in Libby Prisons 
and Andersonvilles. In all these, what is the mat- 



THE MINIFACTION OF SIN. 



35 



ter? Only sin. Take away wrong, sin acted out, 
and all these sufferings, cruelties, agonies, and hor- 
rors vanish. 

^Ve have not forgotten slavery ; it cost us too 
much for that. "What cruelties were endured, ago- 
nies peddled out, by men who went from one plan- 
tation to another to inflict lashes on those whose 
unsubdued humanity kept them in revolt against 
oppression ; separation of families into returnless 
exile ; ignorance which no education was permitted 
to relieve ; hungerings of heart that must not be 
fed ! Sin did all this. 

Turning from sin as an organic force in society, to 
study it in individuals, its nature is found the same, 
and it is seen as difficult to be counted a trifle. A 
young man, the son of doting parents, at cost of 
much parental sacrifice, has qualified himself for busi- 
ness by a long, thorough, and expensive education. 
Loving hearts bore privation and hardship that he 
might go into the world's commercial marts compe- 
tent to transact any intricate and responsible busi- 
ness. At length, leaving home with all fondest 
hopes centred upon him, he takes a responsible 
position in some mercantile house or bank, where 
large sums of money pass through his hands. For a 
while he meets the expectations of his employers and 
the hopes of his parents. But unknown to them he 
has fallen into evil company. A festive gathering of 
associates introduces wine and cards. For want of 
excitement they play for the supper. Heavier gam- 
bling comes naturally enough. His gambling debts 
cannot be paid without drawing salary which he ha^ 



36 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



not yet earned. Soon he needs the lost salary and 
larger advances than he can earn ; so he makes false 
entries on the ledger, and covers them with forged 
checks, which he vainly hopes to take up before 
they fall due or meet detection. The picture need 
not be drawn out in detail. It is familiar to readers 
of newspapers. Discovery is made ; detection lays 
its hand upon him; he is pronounced a felon and 
sent to prison. All his bright hopes, that ran so far 
into the future, end in the darkness and gloom of the 
cell. In parents' hearts joy and hope are turned to 
grief and despair : a grief whose burden they must 
bear through life ; a despair which only the hope of 
heaven can mitigate. Dishonesty did all this ; and 
all the matter with dishonesty is, that it is sin. 

What brighter or more beautiful gem has society 
than a gifted and highly-cultivated daughter, blush- 
ing into all the beauties of young maidenhood? And 
yet with what melancholy frequence has such an one, 
after long solicitation, given her too trustful love 
to a man that was not only seductive, but a seducer ; 
who decoyed her to a house of assignation, only to 
thrust her into a degradation from which her own 
outraged feelings and the cruel verdict of society 
never permit her to rise. In the few years that 
mark her run to an early grave, what ages of woe are 
crowded, as she thinks what might have been ! And 
the desolation of the home she has left no one can 
know till the destroyer comes to his. What wrought 
such ruin, brought such blight, turned so much 
sweetness into gall, so much hope into despair? Sin 
did it. Nothing else could. 



THE MINIFACTION OF SIN. 



'67 



A man is pronounced by the court a murderer. 
If he escape the gallows, it is only to pine away his 
life in solitary confinement ; and no outsider can 
conceive the agony involved in that. But he cannot 
take all the curse of his crime into that cell. Part — 
O, how much ! — is borne by that wife who testified 
so bravely for him, and who wept so sorrowfully on 
his shoulder when the verdict was given. What 
came into that house and sent that husband to such 
a doom, and that broken-hearted wife to go forth and 
find what the world has in store for a murderer's 
wife? Sin did it. Only sin could. 

Take intemperance, gambling, adultery, murder, 
and the long list of crimes : see what they can do in 
wasting the fortunes, blasting the prospects, and 
crushing the hopes of individuals and their families : 
see what such crimes can do in society. More still ; 
imagine, if possible, all the wretchedness and ruin 
they could efiect, if unrestrained by law or gospel : 
and even then, gathering up all the world's woe, it 
will be found no adequate measure of the magnitude 
of sin. It reaches deeper than the understanding 
can fathom, further than the imagination can con- 
ceive. 

Hurts and the keenest stings come not from crimes 
alone, but from sins which the civil law cannot 
touch. There is wrong and its consequent sufiering 
in many a home ; but all the instruments of civil law 
are too coarse and bungling to bring rectification or 
relief. A word, a look, even tones of voice, have 
stung deeper, left in the heart a heavier press of 
agony, than ever misfortune could. Frivolity, neg- 



38 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



lect, even heedlessness, have sent pain into the heart, 
to live there as long as it will beat. 

Take the one fact of disappointment. " He is not 
the husband my heart took him for. O, what might 
have been ! " " She is not the wife my mind had 
pictured, and my heart had craved. Now too late ! " 
This son has not met the high hopes cherished through 
all the years of his growth. This daughter, so ten- 
derly nourished, has proved a viper. This friend, 
leaned upon so confidently, has pierced hand and 
side. So disappointments come, that embitter life in 
all its after flow. And the main element in all such 
disappointments can be traced to sin. Pain never 
stung, sorrow never crushed, disappointment never 
smote, save as sin gave them power. 

And wherein is the power of sin? Only in its 
being consented to, accepted as a law of life, mode 
of conduct, or principle of action. It may be intelli- 
gently and persistently maintained ; it may be only 
blindly and heedlessly permitted. But if, in fact, it 
be a law of conduct, as with the unrenewed sinner, 
then all possibilities of sin come within range and 
reach of that sinner. Let his own will, prompted by 
his misconceived interests, counselled by his love of 
gratification, swayed by his passions, without regard 
to God's authority or the soul's welfare, be the rule 
of his conduct ; then, at length, in favoring condi- 
tions, under press of requisite temptation, any sin he 
can commit. He is on the way to sins from which 
he would now shrink with horror. All most horrible 
crimes, all most damning sins, lie in the way he is 
going. Perhaps he denies this, and repels it as a 



THE MimF ACTION OF SIN. 



39 



slander. It may not seem pertinent to say that he 
does not know himself ; but it is enough to say that 
he has not wisely read the newspapers. 

The restraints of law, the power of social morali- 
ties, pride of self-respect, regard for family and 
friends, sense of safety, ambition for success, the 
conservative power of good habits, and many like 
restraints, bar him from crimes, keep him in the 
ways of good repute, and even lead him in a path 
which in places , runs close by the Christian's. He 
may even have the p>^i:t and fairness of Christian 
guise. But society is daily demonstrating how 
weak these restraints are ; how readily sin can lead 
a man to break through all such barriers, and plunge 
into deepest crimes. Frequently the community is 
shocked by men breaking through all restraints, and 
letting the sin that inflamed their hearts and festered 
within, urge them to most horrible crimes. Position 
in society, domestic relations, self-respect, former 
habits of morality, voice of conscience, fear of God, 
and dread of consequences were nothing. 

In face of this, all Powers of Evil, certainly the in- 
carnated, insist that sin is a trifle. Were this delusion 
. fully exposed ; were the magnitude of sin, the way 
it works, and the lengths to which it can lead, fully 
understood and deeply felt, it would raise an alarm, 
stir fears, lead on to struggles which would give 
souls deliverence from its power, bring them into 
the liberty of the gospel, and quickly overthrow the 
Kingdom of Evil . 

But this must not be. All Powers of Evil, from 
Satan downwards, cry out against it. No such prop- 



40 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



osition could carry the vote of this world. No such 
revolution in its affairs will the world permit. Were 
the Powers of Evil to consent, it would foreclose the 
"conflict of the ages," bring to ripe maturity the 
plan which God is leading on to completeness so 
surely. Alas ! so slowly, so slowly, only because 
the revolution must come, if at all, by consent of 
individual souls. 

To guard against such speedy overthrow ; to fore- 
stall the ruin which the higher Powers of Evil may 
know is coming, but which their pride, their unbelief, 
and their ambition keep concealed even from their 
own eyes ; to put off yet longer the crushing disaster 
that must come to this rebellion in the final triumph 
of righteousness ; to maintain yet longer at work this 
vast enginery of sin, — the Powers of the Kingdom 
of Evil, right here, raise a contest, and dispute the 
magnitude of sin, the way, certainty, and disaster of 
its working. 

Secretly, they know sin's power, the certainty with 
which it works, its disaster, and the astounding 
excesses to which it can go. Secretly, they gloat over 
its magnitude, and even pride themselves in having 
so great a venture in hand. But to admit this would 
be only to invite overthrow. So the magnitude, cer- 
tainty, disaster, and excesses of sin must be denied 
at all hazards. All the working forces of the King- 
dom of Evil, all apostate spirits of other worlds, all 
fallen men of this, who have got far enough along to 
take in the real genius of sin, deny its magnitude, 
certainty, disaster, and excess. 

So we find it. Every sinner is deluding himself 



MINIFACTION OF SIN. 



41 



with the conviction that sin isn't much ; only a pec- 
cadillo ; no reason at all for the loss of the soul and 
its imprisonment in hell. Violation of good man- 
ners would trouble tliem more. If sin shows itself 
in ome ludicrous shape, they can laugh at it just 
as heartily as though there was no sin in it. If it 
brings some immediate pleasure, they accept it as 
rejoicingly as though there were no damning curse 
in it. If it yields present ease, and begets careless- 
ness of consequences, they rejoice in freedom from 
alarm. If a thousand dollars can be made by tellinof 
a lie, they ask. What harm is the lie? If a fortune 
can be made by a life of rascality, who will stop for 
the rascality? Denial of sin's magnitude, certainty, 
disaster, and excess, is an element of success in the 
Kinsfdom of Evil. 

This denial is extensively made, is even character- 
istic of our times. It not only crops out here and 
there, but underlies much of our readable literature. 
Popular writers attribute what of sin they admit to 
ignorance, bad digestion, malformations, and unto- 
ward surroundings ; whatever else there is, they 
regard as a necessary disadvantage of our finiteness. 
Therefore, so far as it can be cured in this world, 
their remedies are education, hygiene, social and polit- 
ical reforms, — mere palliatives of sin's curse, but no 
radical cure of the disease. 

Under such narrow and feeble views, the facts of 
history and the condition of humanity cannot be 
understood ; and, worse still, no right and heroic 
living is possible. Eliminate the Biblical idea of sin 
from the mind, and no radical revolution of moral 

4 



42 



success OF EVIL. 



character will transpire ; no repentance ; no prayer- 
fulness ; no earnest conflicts with sin; no alliance of 
heart with Christ, and no ascent to the level of the 
heavenly life. All that is likely to be done is a fee- 
ble attempt at reform, which will leave the Kingdom 
of Evil abundant room and success. 



CHAPTER V. 

PEOVINCE CLAOIED BY SIN. 



THE Roman Catholic church through much of its 
history has sought to manage the bestowal and 
confer the repute of sainthood. Only to martyrs, 
and such as were eminent in monastic sanctity, has 
that church given the repute of saintliness, and gen- 
erally long after their death. The papal church has 
fashioned the world's convictions in this matter, and 
modified the current forms of expression. Many call 
saints only those whom that church has put on the 
calendar. Here is a somewhat noteworthy fact, that 
the convictions of the people in the church and out 
of it, on the subject of sainthood, have been shaped 
as they would not have been by the ideas and language 
of the New Testament. Some are called saints with- 
out any proof of their saintliness ; others not, though 
believed to be already such before the throne of 
God. 

This is cited in illustration of other things of its 
sort. It is not the only blunder we have received 
traditionally. If such blunders are possible, how 
often may they have been repeated? Without at- 
tempting to set any boundary to this field of deceit, 



44 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



I shall seek to show that there is at least one other 
in which prevalent convictions are as far from known 
fact as in the matter of sainthood ; namely, a gross 
traditionary misconception, in the minds both of 
Christians and sinners, as to the province of religion ; 
whereby it is made to consist in Godward acts of the 
soul, in devotional exercises and sanctuary services, 
especially on Sabbath days. 

This is fostered by the conscious experience of 
adult conversions. The prominent thing before the 
mind of the convert is right adjustment of soul with 
God. He has found himself a sinner against God, 
condemned by God's law, in need of God's pardon, 
and to be saved, if at all, by God's grace. In enter- 
ing upon the Christian life, his repentance is towards 
God ; at the throne of grace he makes plea for par- 
don ; and the joy that comes is the assurance of the 
divine favor. What change in human relations this 
may require is a matter of subsequent, if not secon- 
dary, thought. 

Indeed, taking the whole history of Christianity^, 
the same general order of thought may be found run- 
ning through it. The monasticism which marked the 
early ages of Christian history was a method in 
which the soul exercised itself in its Godward rela- 
tions. Eetirement to cave or convent was that the 
soul might lose itself in the rapt meditations of a 
divinely contemplative spirit. In such seclusion to 
spend years in holy meditation and in the communion 
of prayer, was emphatically a religious life. This 
view of the Christian life, a scholastic monasticism, 
can be traced in nearly all the centuries of Christian 
history previous to the Reformation, 



PROTIXCE CLAIMED BY SIN. 



45 



In later times, religion, more than before, has gona 
forth into the world with enlightenment and relief. 
It has undertaken to reconstruct society. Into marts 
of trade, with principles of ecjuity ; into courts, with 
principles of enlightened jurisprudence ; into the 
political arena, with the doctrines of justice and 
freedom: and into halls of legislation, with constitu- 
tional law, — Christianity has gone, demanding in all 
these wider room and freer action for herself, yet in 
all this never overlooking the fact that the foundation 
of all betterment in society is the regeneration of 
individual souls. 

Yet there is found, in the church and out, the fore- 
named fact, a general, perhaps somewhat unexamined 
impression, that religion is chiefly, if not exclusively, 
a matter between each soul and G-od. In looking for 
conlirmation of this statement, it is fitting to leave out 
all those who have such meao-re views of relioion as 
to make it a mere morality, merely a prudent policy 
for the wise, quiet, and safe ordering of this life. A 
religion that can do no more ; that has no power to 
restore a fallen soul, not even discrimination to rec- 
ognize it as a fallen soul; no power to adjust it into 
lost relations, to revolutionize and inspire it with a 
higher life than its own, to give it an outlook upon 
immortality and a use for the universe, — is not a 
religion worthy of the name, nor of which note is 
now taken. 

As disclosed by God, as illustrated in the life of 
Christ, and as set forth in writings inspired by the 
Holy Ghost, also as involved in its essential prin- 
ciples, there is no level of society, no range of life, 



46 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



110 place where a right thing can be done, or a wrong, 
which is not within the province of religion. It 
refuses restriction within any narrower range. The 
habitat of religion ind^uces every condition of hu- 
manity. Term-time in the school of Christ includes 
every hour of life. In all places, at all times, some- 
thing can be accomplished in the religious culture of 
the soul ; for this end there are no wastes, no desert 
spots in life. 

Yet careful inquiry is not at a loss to find Chris- 
tians who hold the Sabbath as the Lord's, other days 
their own. Worship in all its forms they count " re- 
ligious services " ; while the services, the activities, 
that fill up the main bulk of life, are called business, 
and are thought to be quite devoid of any religious 
character, — as usually they are. Money given in 
charity or for religious institutions is held as sacred. 
The rest is secular. Business, property, and politics 
lie outside of religion. If, by pressure, religious 
truth is made to push over into this realm, from some 
it meets with prompt resent ; by others heard respect- 
fully, but with a silent protest and with a determined 
rejection of the encroachment, — divorcing their busi- 
ness from their religion, in their religion serving 
God and in business themselves. They are religious 
occasionally, — in spots. 

Were they to study out some intelligent and defen- 
sible views in the matter, and write them down for 
guidance, they would, no doubt, come to very or- 
thodox conclusions, perhaps exhibit a very different 
life. But this is what few of them ever do ; in conse- 
quence, they keep a broad line of separation between 



PROVINCE CLAIMED BY SIN. 



47 



religion and business- When any interest of the 
Redeemer's Kingdom comes with claims for service 
or money, with how many the first instinctive move- 
ment of thought and feeling is denial, out of which 
they must be very carefully persuaded. Something 
more is needed than a full statement of the case with 
its warrants of wisdom. Perhaps, for final success, 
a low and unmanly sentiment has to be appealed to, 
besides handling their morbid, worldly feelings with 
great care, and themselves with great consideration. 

It is very easy to conceive how differently matters 
would go if they permitted their religion a wide and 
free sweep over its legitimate province. Then would 
they have within the field of their thoughts a con- 
trivance, care, and interest for every welfare of the 
church and for every aspect of Christ's kingdom. 
They would be on inquiry to find opportunities for 
charitable expenditure and Christian investment. All 
interests of Christ's church at home and of his king- 
dom abroad would be a part of their business, to be 
taken into account, planned and provided for. Thus 
would their lives have a wider sweep, loftier aims, 
and a healthful spontaneity ; and themselves an en- 
noblement of which they never dreamed. 

It is neither slur nor slander to affirm, that in the 
average conviction of unconverted men, religion is a 
matter of time and places. They expect to see some- 
thing of it on the Sabbath, but not on other days ; 
at church, but not on the street; at worship, but not 
at work. Some utterly deny that it should make 
any show of itself in politics. They look not for it 
in business, in the use and control of property, in 



48 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



management of the tongue, in the affinities that have 
play in social life, in the courtesies that sweeten 
society, iu the silently-done charity, in self-denial for 
others' good, nor in wrong taken unresentfully. Their 
blinded miuds see religion only at church ; and even 
had they greater spiritual discernment, they might 
not in many cases find it elsewhere, nor always there. 

It were easy to show this to be a gross misconcep- 
tion. Let any one study the character of God, con- 
ceive what his moral government involves ; let one 
look at the nature of the soul, at its powers of thought 
and feeling, its capacity for action, suffering, and en- 
joyment, its fallen state, what its restoration involves, 
how truth as a law of life can shape the soul and love 
transform it; let one see the soul, in the discipline 
of Christian life, putting forth its powers in a drill of 
heavenly exercises, fitting for the activities of im- 
mortality, playing out influences which, purposely or 
unconsciously, reflect the image of God and trans- 
form other souls into his likeness ; let one see that 
just this enters into all varieties of intelligent Chris- 
tian life, in all conditions, at all times, on all occa- 
sions and in all employment ; and religion is readily 
seen to be, not a thing done, but a life lived, as vari- 
ous as life can be, and as continuous as life must be. 

But the aim is not to controvert this conviction, 
nor inveigh against it, only to consider the fact of its 
prevalence, in the church and out. Consequences 
come of it; the most obvious of which, as broad as 
the fact itself, is that so much of life is shut away 
from the sphere and reach of religion. Business, trav- 
el, pleasure, social life, its affinities and repellancies, 



PROVINCE CLAIMED BY SIN. 



49 



domestic life, its principles and spirit, are made to lie 
outside of the reach and beyond the permitted con- 
trol of relio'ion. 

How it came so, it is difficult to tell. It is not so 
with some other religions. In India, we find a re- 
ligion that regulates all smallest particulars of life. 
Its touch is constant, its power felt every hour. It 
regulates food and drink, prescribes a code of regu- 
lations for social intercourse that are minute and au- 
thoritative ; in fine, it forbids and commands at every 
turn in daily life. True, it is a religion of ceremo- 
nies, makes slaves of its adherents, leaving no room 
for the liberty that makes loving sacrifice, trains the 
soul to no nobility, and gives it neither breadth, vol- 
ume, nor high aspiration. Yet it makes itself an ever- 
present power over the soul. Between the Brah- 
minism of India, and Christianity as it lies in the 
conception of the multitude, this difference is as note- 
worthy as any : that Brahminism touches the soul 
of its adherent with a constant power ; while Chris- 
tianity, as so generally misconceived, is a religion of 
times and places, confined within narrow bounds, leav- 
ing long reaches and wide domains of life beyond its 
permitted sway. 

Here the Kins^dom of Evil finds another element 
of success : conceiving that Kingdom merely as in- 
cluding the aggregate of unconverted adults now 
inhabiting the earth, what have they in hand ? Xearly 
the entire business of the world, something more im- 
portant, in their esteem, than the churches are ever 
likely to do. They cannot dispute that Christian 
men have also a hand in business ; the best men in 



50 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



eveiy trade and occupation, yea, sometimes the rul- 
ing spirits and controlling power in monetary and 
commercial centres, and doing well their part in all 
ramifications of business. But it is worldly busi- 
ness ; even Christians count it so, and often draw 
contrasts between secular emplo^^ments and religion 
in a way that leaves the entire realm of business as 
belonging to the world ; and by that they mean the 
Kingdom of Evil as distinguished from the Kingdom 
of Christ. 

To give the matter a worse look, some Christians 
conduct business on no higher principles and for no 
loftier aims than do men of the world. Some drive 
as hard a bargain, shave as close, and come just as 
near to downright dishonesty, as can the world's 
sharpest knave. And when by such, or any means, 
a fortune has been gathered, the uses some make of 
it in gratifying pride, in making life luxurious, and 
in the spendthrift ways of fashionable watering- 
places, give business a still more worldly aspect. 

The talk of men helps the impression that the 
whole department of business belongs to the King- 
dom of Evil. Some of them, even though in the 
church, disclose a state of mind just as feverishly anx- 
ious to get rich as any poor sinner that had no trust 
in a Heavenly Father. Their hearts go after covet- 
ousness ; they rejoice over gains and prospects of 
enrichment just as though there w^as nothing better 
in this life. And so the impression gets broadly and 
deeply made from Monday morning till Saturday 
night, as all the year's Sabbaths cannot efface, that 
business is worldlinesSj wdth no process of God-serv- 



PROVINCE CLAIMED BY SIN. 



51 



ins: in it. And worldliness is the Kino-Jom of Evil. 
So that Kingdom is made strong by the broad room 
it occupies. 

To make itself still broader and firmer in position, 
it has claimed for itself exclusive possession of the 
realm of politics. This, to be sure, has been denied 
and protested against ; men have affirmed that there 
is a way of doing right and serving God in politics. 
This is not generally admitted, but strenuously re- 
sisted. This matter is not now brought up for dis 
cussion. It is met with neither admission nor denial ; 
but is held up simply as a fact, maintained by so many, 
that the province of religion covers not the field of 
politics. 

In this restriction of the province of religion, — 
shuttino^ it out from the world's business and from 
its politics ; shutting it out also, as could readily 
be shown, from the whole round of the world's 
pleasures, — we see the province which Sin arrogates 
to itself, covering wellnigh the whole field of human 
activity. Thus we come to see more» clearly than 
before, why this Kingdom of Evil, which at first 
seemed to have in it only elements of failure, comes 
to have success, finds room for itself, a magnitude 
and even dignity that begins to command our respect. 

When we come to consider the capital invested, 
the vast multitude of men emploj^ed, their skilled 
power, their trained minds, their long experience, 
their capacity of execution, their assiduous applica- 
tion, what invention has found out, how system has 
arranged all arts, gathered up raw products, adjusted 
the machinery of manufacture, and established com- 



52 SUCCl^JSS OF EVIL. 

merce, — all for the realization of -e«i?-fott4 product, 
wealth ; when we see, in protecting and fastening all 
this, that politics, with its tariffs, its banks, its laws, 
its courts, its diplomacy, and its usages, open all fair 
and sometimes unfair ways to bring surer and larger 
wealth; when, too, we see, especially in cities, at 
fashionable watering-places, and at the National Capi- 
tol, how pleasure with her intoxicants urges on the 
devotees of Mammon to push all economies, indus- 
tries, and even knaveries, that she may spend with 
more reckless prodigality, — we see in the Kingdom 
of Evil very promising elements of success. 

If business and politics and pleasure belong exclu- 
sively to the Kingdom of Evil, as is claimed by many 
men, and even conceded by some Christians who 
keep their religion within such narrow bounds that 
it has nothing to do save at church and on Sun- 
days, — then, though the Kingdom of Evil be against 
reason, conscience, and all best powers in man, 
against all longings and aspirations that ally the 
soul to God and reach out to immortality, yet that 
Kingdom of Evil has elements of power and prog- 
ress which explain its unmerited and otherwise unac- 
countable success. 



CHAPTER VI. 



SIN RESPECTABLE IN ITS SHOW. 

AS we take into consideration the souls standing 
under the moral government of God, get any 
true apprehension of its capacities and inherent neces- 
sities, and then look off on its near-by immortality, 
we readily pronounce the soul's welfare, its religious 
interests, the most important concern of life. In this 
respect no one can fail to see, that, by as much as the 
soul is more than the body, eternity than time, by so 
much must eternal concerns transcend temporal. 
Once admit the soul's immortality, its amenability to 
God, that character here formed settles eternal des- 
tiny, and upon these premises one can prove, past 
all gainsaying, that soul-welfare is the first, foremost, 
and highest interest of life ; that nothing has perma- 
nent value, if it fail to help in this ; that men living 
in habitual neglect of the soul, failing to secure its 
emancipation from sin through God's regenerating 
grace, and failing to put the soul through a discipline 
clearly seen to fit it for heavenly society, can be 
proved fools, in the broadest, most emphatic, and 
solemn use of that word. 

This is a primary truth of religion, and not less ot 



54 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



common-sense. Take the most successful of these 
men, as the world would measure success ; men who 
have gathered the largest fortunes, surrounded them- 
selves with all ministries of ease and means of enjoy- 
ment which cultivated taste could select, or money 
purchase ; or, if their ambition run in a different line, 
take men who have gained the heights of political 
life ; lay such, suddenly, and in the maturity of life, 
upon a bed of sickness, from w^hich they know, to 
their full convincement, the grave is the only escape ; 
and if they accept the plainest facts of religion, they 
must pronounce thei-r past course the most egregious 
folly they could commit. 

If life is for anything, it is for ends found in im- 
mortality. If the education and training of human 
powers are of any use, the highest of those uses must 
be in the soul's eternal manhood. The culture of the 
imagination, the development of reason, the training 
of thought, the regulation of the temper, the disci- 
pline of the heart, the cultivation of the affections, 
goiDg on to the close of life, must find their highest 
ranges of use in that life to which this is introductory. 
Any other conclusion unsettles all our convictions of 
proportion, fitness, and value. 

These are simple doctrines of religion ; no less are 
they profound truths of philosophy. If the soul is 
for anything worthy of its powers ; if God's creations 
are for any purpose worthy of their magnitude and 
skill ; if the arguments of history are to have any 
worthy conclusion ; if God's moral government is to 
inaugurate and maintain any state worthy of its prin- 
ciples and processes, or even of the iuconceivable 



Siy RESPECTABLE IN ITS SHO W. 



55 



myriads of its subjects, — then these consummations 
must lie further on, in the impending immortality ; 
they are not found in this life. 

It becomes, then, the readiest, because a resistless 
step of logic, that the years of life spent in no intel- 
ligent preparation for that immortality, are wasted 
years. If to occupy life in what is clearly seen to 
be only a transient interest, be not folly, what is? 
To occupy powers capable of handling all highest 
truths aud greatest concerns in the universe, to bui^^ 
these with what in a few years will be nothing, — what 
language has terms to measure and set forth such 
folly? This conclusion is resistless. No process of 
reasoning can overthrow it. It cannot be unsettled 
or disturbed in the least, except by denials that set 
everything afloat, that leave no certainties of fiict or 
stabilities of truth on which the soul can rest. We 
accept the Bible view of life, aud its relations to 
immortality, as the only explanation worthy of our 
conditions and powers. We see no way of escape 
from these conclusions, but by denials which throw 
all things out of connection, and make the world the 
hopeless ward of an insane asylum. So it seems to 
us, in the quiet hours of profound meditation. 

But when men come to look at this subject from 
their places of business, themselves clad in the sub- 
stantial garments of toil, with the zeal of worldliness 
in their hearts ; when their interest in the enterprises 
of trade and toil is quickened as success requires ; 
"v^en they feel the pressure of accumulated work, the 
need of enlargement in this direction and that, with 
the incitement of sure reward and large gains, — 



56 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



then what a different train of thought will occupy the 
mind ; how close and real and substantial will seem 
all these enterprises of business ! now they have to 
do with life's foremost and valuable realities ; and 
how dim and distant seem the matters they had in 
mind during their hours of meditation ! The mag- 
nitude of business interests give them a respecta- 
bility and consideration which the Kingdom of Evil 
assumes to itself and makes an element of success. 

The argument assumes, for its fullest presentation, 
an enumeration, a summing-up of all business val- 
ues. But this would lead to figures beyond definite 
comprehension. The misconception that puts all 
business beyond the province of religion, puts all the 
capital invested in farms, town and city lots, build- 
ings, manufactories, railroads, steamers, ships of 
commerce, merchandise, securities, and banking, into 
the use of the Kingdom of Evil, as belonging to it. 
Under this false yet general view, let one stand where 
he can have a bird's-eye view of the world's business, 
as seen in a Western grain and lumber emporium, 
and note the impression it makes on his mind ; let 
him see the rush and hear the roar of teams, carting 
in and out, as commerce demands ; look down upon 
long ranges of deep and high warehouses, filled with 
products of all climes ; steamers, propellers, and other 
craft sailing out and into the harbor, freighted with 
wealth ; a thousand cars arriving daily, some from 
Atlantic, some from Pacific coast ; others departing 
to such far-ofi* destination, all freighted with produce 
and merchandise, whose value utterly bewilders the 
mind. Following these streams of wealth as they 



SIN RESPECTABLE IN ITS SHOW. 



57 



sweep eastward to some commercial emporium, let 
him see them dashing, like maddened waters upon 
counter streams, as they sweep in from foreign lands, 
the one to find way to places of home consumption, 
the other to ports across the ocean. 

Then, from such a general observation, let him go 
down and stand for an hour in some wholesale house, 
and see the amount and value of goods daily received 
and sold ; or at the counter of some bank, and note 
the average of exchanges between paying.and receiv- 
ing tellers ; and then remember that all along tliese 
streets are miles of such wholesale and banking 
houses, and he will have a confused and bewildered 
idea of the immense quantities and vast capital occu- 
pied in the world's business. Business summing up 
such vast aggregates, handling such heavy capital, 
occupying so many hands and best trained minds in 
the country, even if it is all outside religion, as is 
claimed by many and conceded by some, neverthe- 
less commands respect for its intricacy and gigantic 
proportions. 

And the men engaged in it feel that they are doing 
the real business of this world and this life. To them 
what the world is for is to have such things done. 
The world emerged from its old geologic ages and 
keeps swinging along its orbit for just this use. The 
years come that they maybe filled with such transac- 
tions. Using time, money, and all powers of mind in 
such occupations, men feel that they are putting 
things to their right use, and filling out for them- 
selves a life fullest orbed. This view gets impressed 
on the minds of men who have higher and broader 
5 



58 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



views, but who cannot resist the dominant spirit of 
the age.* 

We may argue against it ; deny that religion is 
shut up in su(;h narrow province ; affirm that its 
sphere reaches wherever right things can be done, or 
wrong ; that all business is to be only a method of 
God-serving ; that it is to be undertaken and prose- 
cuted on such principles, in such a spirit, and with 
such aims, that it shall consciously be a religion, 
confirming 4:he soul in Christian obedience, dignify- 
ing life, and refreshing the heart as would a season of 
worship. But the extent to which we hear Chris- 
tians complain of the untoward influence of business 
on their religion, the divorce and antagonism in 
which they are held, show how largely they have 
failed to accept business as a sphere of religion. And 
so all the respectability that comes from the vast 
aggregate and heavy capital of the world's business, 
is put to the credit of the Kingdom of Evil. In such 
service a man feels that he is makino: somethino: of 
himself; that herein he finds his true worth and dig- 

* In illustration, a clergyman called on his parishioner, by 
previous arrangement, for his donation to an important fund. 
Finding him engaged in business, he apologized for his intrusion 
and offered to withdraw, just as though it was any intrusion to 
come, by previous appointment, into a Christian man's office, 
on business pertaining to the advancement of the Redeemer's 
Kingdom. The parishioner accepted the courtesy as befitting 
the dignity of wealth, and presented his check for a large 
amount. We are concerned only in the air of the thing, the 
understanding, the felt conviction, which forced itself upon men 
who knew better, that religion must come to business in very 
humble attitude, and, like^a poor relation, offer apology for the 
trusion. 



Sm RESPECTABLE IN ITS SHOW. 



59 



nity. It sometimes troubles him, that his is a life 
of siu ; but religion is so distant, shut up in such 
narrow province of mere worship, so indefinite as 
compared with the palpable realities of business, 
that the latter, to the exclusion of religion, gains his 
thoughts, absorbs his heart, and incorporates his life 
into the Kingdom of Evil. The readily seen and 
appreciated substantialness of business, its vast 
amounts and consequent respectability, help that 
Kingdom to success. 

Take another of the world's great concerns, — war. 
What splendors attach to the movement of an army, 
the encampment, a review of troops, the evolutions 
of artillery, the march to battle, the grandeur of the 
conflict, and the exultation in victory. Any sight of 
these leaves it no matter of wonder that so much 
glory attaches to military life. When we read 
graphic accounts — knowing them to be tame beside 
the reality — of battles that gave this nation union, 
freedom, and peace, we feel to have had part in so 
great a struggle was to make those years of life 
memorable. War prosecuted in defence of national 
life and solidarity has abundant justifications. Upon 
it Crod's blessing has been invoked and bestowed. 
Yet what guilt is theirs who stir up the strifes of 
war. Take any war, a campaign, or even a single 
battle, Gettysburg or Sedan ; see the loss of life, 
sufierings of the wounded, the grief that comes to so 
many homes, to stay so long ; and none can doubt 
the guilt of those who "let slip the dogs of war." 

Yet, without question of its justification, always 
readily found, to have had part in war, to have 



60 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



shown bravery, to have won battles, to have risen to 
command, to have become the proud commander of 
an army, — how much more is this, in common esti- 
mation, than to have become a truly Christian man? 
to be called a general or commodore, than simply 
a Christian brother? War for aggression, conquest, 
or oppression clearly belongs to the Kingdom of Evil. 
Yet when there attaches to war all the guilt that 
can, how magnificent an afiair it still can be ! How 
intoxicating the power it puts on man ! How excit- 
ing its chances I With what absorbing interest its 
campaigns unfold ! To have had part in these, to 
have been in high command, how much more is 
thus offered to many, than all that can be found in 
the whole round of a religious life and its eternal 
issues ! 

So take politics. We admit the possibility and 
the rare fact, that one can be a political man for ends 
that are pre-eminently right and Christian. Of such, 
instances can be found that match any patriotism or 
heroism in the world's history. On the political 
arena, our own country and others are not wanting 
in noble specimens of humanity. But take political 
life in its more frequent aspect, where each man's 
endeavor is determined chiefly and obviously by per- 
sonal ambition, — the party and its principles suc- 
ceeding as well under another's leadership, — take 
just that run of politics which belongs to the King- 
dom of Evil, whise personal ambition is stimulated 
by popularity, office, salary, power, and perquisites, 
how exciting and alluring the chances opened to am- 
bition ! For success, what will not be endured ? To 



Sm RESPECTABLE IN ITS SHOW. 



61 



gain the high ends of ambition, to have office and 
power, how much more real, substantial, and sat- 
isfactory than anything religion can olFer, — to 
go to Congress worthier of effort than to go to 
heaven ! 

Glance at one thing more, — pleasure ; and at only 
one of its many scenes. For pleasure and gayety a 
man takes his family to a fashionable watering-place. 
He may rent a cottage for $1,000 to $5,000. Varia- 
tions of dress, style of carriage and team, attendance 
of servants, mode of living, and round of dissipation 
must correspond. So at an expense of $10,000 or 
more, a few months of pleasure come and go with 
all their variations, excitements, and intoxicatinsj 
delights. The ride, the sail, the surf-bathing, the 
gossip with newly-arrived friends, the flutter of new 
fashions, the evening party, the dance, perhaps gam- 
bling also ; put to no necessity of counting cost, how 
intoxicating a few such weeks to lovers of pleasure ! 
How many rush to such places that they may have 
company with the gay spendthrifts of what is called 
* fashionable life" ! To how many this is more than 
religion can offer ! 

To be rich, or to be Christian ; to have high com- 
mand in military life, or to be Christian ; to have 
ofBce and power in politics, or to be Christian ; to 
have the luxury of pleasure at Saratoga, Nahant, or 
Long Branch, or to be Christian : put to the choice 
of only one, how many would choose something else 
than to be Christians? So the Kingdom of Evil, by 
its own claims, partly by consent of those who know 
better, has taken possession of business, war, poli- 



62 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



tics, and pleasure, — made these great concerns of 
worldliness so attractive, so respectable, given them 
such dignity, and thus sway, over the minds of 
men, that they are grand elements of success in the 
Kingdom of Evil. 



CHAPTER VII. 



CONCEALMENTS OF SIN. 

THINGS look differently from different points of 
observation. It is so with a landscape, conduct, 
and the whole drift of historical events . The North- 
ern aspect and the Southern of our late war were very 
different. From one point of vision the wonder is 
that the Kingdom of Evil finds any success. It is so 
at variance with highest welfare in the long run ; so 
peremptorily forbids a man to make the most of him- 
self; throws him out of adjustment with God and 
the universe ; makes so little of his poAvers and op- 
portunities ; puts him into such disturbances and dis- 
cords ; embroils him in so many difficulties ; can 
awaken such terrible fears ; fret him with so many 
exasperations, and in the end brings him to such re- 
mediless ruin, — that, judging simply from the nature 
of the case, one would think that the Kingdom of Evil, 
at the beginning, and all through its history, would 
have dragged, fallen behind, and never come to any 
respectable success. It has all elements of failure, 
as seen in one aspect ; and if in the history of any 
soul, or world, the Kingdom of Evil had proved an 
utter abortion, very good reasons could have been 
given. 



64 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



Looking at it from another point of vision makes 
quite a difference. Let the sense of immortality be 
deadened, as with so many, so that, though a here- 
after of conscious existence be held theoretically, 
there shall practically, day after day, be maintained 
an utter forgetfulness of the proximity and certainty 
of the grand events coming; also, in face of all the 
terrible things it is doing, let sin be counted a triHe, 
the difference between Christian and sinner denied ; 
let religion be shut up to the narrow province of 
religious observances and sacred times, leaving the 
attractive and frequented spaces of life aloof from its 
claim and power; let sin be made respectable in 
the attractive show it makes in business, war, poli- 
tics, and pleasure, and reasons begin to appear why 
the Kingdom of Evil may have success. This is 
further explained by the fact that guilt is concealed 
by the attractiveness and profit of sin. 

The moral repugnance of sin is concealed by the 
attractions thrown around it. On popular streets in 
cities and at fashionable watering-places are opened 
drinking and gambling houses. One whose idea of 
such places is formed by what is found where society 
is only dead enough to ferment moderate corruption, 
can have no conception of the attractive gorgeousness 
in which sin can be arrayed. Looking at such a 
temple of vice, even as seen from the street, noting 
the grandeur of its architectural proportions, its 
richness of adornment, its palatial rooms and luxu- 
rious furniture, — seen through the glass frontage, it 
might seem a fit abode of angels, rather than demons. 
While, in view of their use, they are fitly called 



CONCEALMENTS OF SIN 



65 



"gambling hells," they might, in view of their struc- 
ture and adornment, not inappropriately be called 
gambling heavens. 

Not only is there ready supply for every appetite 
and passion, something to meet and delight every 
sense, but let the senses, by long indulgence, become 
preternaturally delicate and quick to detect and enjoy 
all nicest shades of quality in gourmandism, and 
there is supply for any appetite, however capri- 
cious or expensive. If one prides himself in being 
a connoisseur in liquids, and demands, at fabulous 
cost, wines brought from far and preserved through 
long years, his appetite can be gratified ; that in this 
his pretence of palate-skill is met by pretence as to 
the origin and age of the wines furnished, only shows 
what an equal match shams can make. 

Not only every sense of the body, but powers of 
mind, are met with gratification. Does a cultivated 
taste demand superbly furnished apartments, adorned 
with costly works of art, multiplied by massive mir- 
rors? All this can be found in rooms luxuriously 
furnished, magnificently draped, brilliantly lighted, 
and supplied with costly paintings, statuary, and 
other artistic ministries of delight. Seldom has 
refined taste, inspired by love of family and home, 
with wealth at command, been able to gather into 
any princely residence appliances for gratification, 
ministries to ease, and instruments of delight, found 
in some of these temples of vice and ruin. 

The managers of these establishments, though 
brutal when necessary, can show an easy and courtly 
politeness. They are men of intelligence, travel, 



66 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



and wide social range. They know the ways of the 
world, can meet highest classes on their own level, 
and prove agreeable company to any most cultivated. 
And even the waiters show an obsequiousness which 
leads a man, capable of such inflation, to feel himself 
on a higher level than he had supposed within his 
reach. If a man could meet the bills, could quiet con- 
science, hush all voices of reason, stifle all longing for 
the greater things of which the soul is capable, if he 
could only forget God, immortality, and all grand 
realities of life, how pleasant to while away an even- 
ing, and many of them, in such an establishment ! 
How beautiful sin can be ! How entirely can its at- 
tractions conceal its guilt and danger I 

In such establishments, by their polite and courtly 
managers, men are made drunkards, gambled out of 
their fortunes, and then turned out of those palaces 
of luxuiy, elegance, and adornment, some insane with 
drunkenness, others crazed by loss of fortune, and 
often ready for suicide. Such ruin comes every 
week to some. Fondest hopes, brightest prospects, 
noblest powers, and grand possibilities are smitten 
down, elegantly to be sure, but swiftly and with fell 
certainty. This ruin, once wrought, sweeps away in 
underground channels seldom seen by the public 
eye. That fair temple of vice and ruin stands as 
alluring and tempting to coming victims, as it did to 
those who have been sacrificed and are gone. Its 
embellishments conceal, perhaps adorn, the sins they 
are made to serve. How beautiful and bewitching, 
enshrined in what glories so ruthless, a sin as gamb- 



CONCEALMENTS OF SIN. 



67 



liug can be. With such helps the Kingdom of Evil 
must have some success. 

For like end, but by different methods, the same 
thing is done in the theatre. Higher powers of mind 
are appealed to and lower passions. The adornments 
of the theatre are more flashy and tawdry ; but in the 
histrionic art, addressing itself, as it can, to some of 
the noblest powers of the mind, the charm of stage 
scenery, the brilliancy of the assembly, the lights, the 
gayety and music, the central attraction and accom- 
paniments, give the theatre a fascination over varied 
classes of mind. Those who cannot be won by severe 
exhibitions of the histrionic art in its higher ranges, 
can be drawn by the buffoonery of the comedy, ballet- 
dancing, and by what more there is further on and 
lower down, stirring the vilest sensualities, with near- 
by opportunities of gratification. O, how brilliant 
and gay vice can be ! And, too, so near at hand, in- 
dulgences for every lust that burns, and every passion 
that rages in corrupt humanity ! All these are pre- 
sented with an air of respectability, with attractions 
and an outside look of decency that hide the sin and 
give it success. 

By still another method the same thing is done in 
the ball-room, where the comparatively pure submit 
to a handling they would instinctively resent outside 
of the dance ; where delicacy loses its bloom ; and 
what lies further on, beyond that, it would be sad to 
say or even think. This sin of " lovers of pleasure 
more than lovers of God " is concealed by the festiv- 
ity of the scene, the flash of lights, the attraction of 
company, the gayety of the music, and the splendor 



68 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



of attire. As a marked instance of the latter, the 
newspapers report that a lady at Washington lately 
promenaded in a ball-room, bearing upon her person 
clothing and ornaments valued at $75,000. Embel- 
lished in what adornments pride can be ! How gay 
extravagance can appear ! What attracting guise 
vanity can put on ! 

Sin is the original cause of all disaster in the uni- 
verse, of all discord among nations, of all wretched- 
ness in families, and of all ruin to souls. It can even 
send its desolations down upon the materialities of 
nature. Such is its drift and power ; but to those 
who cannot see this, so at war is it to every sense of 
welfare and security, so opposed to man's best pow- 
ers in their noblest ranges of action, that one would 
think sin, by its own nature, barred the way to suc- 
cess. But when we see how it is concealed by the 
attractions thrown " around it, how fascinating its 
guise, how captivating its indulgences, and how 
respectable its practice, we find there are reasons 
for its unmerited success. 

So, again, sin is concealed under the cover of its 
immediate profit. AYhy, there are men who, for one 
fair snatch at the wealth that lady bore along in her 
promenade through a Washington ball-room, — for 
one fair snatch with both hands, — Avould be willing 
she should immediately sink through the grave to 
hell. How small are the sums, as told in the news- 
papers and proved in court, which can blind a man 
to the guilt of murder, and hide from the perpetrator 
all sense of its magnitude. A few dollars have done 
that. 



CONCEALMENTS OF SIN. 



69 



What is a lie, — a lie as plain, positive, emphatic, 
and well constructed as a lie could be, — in compari- 
son with some small profit? How, in the esteem of 
many, is its guilt concealed by a cent more per yard, 
per pound, per bushel ; by a dime more per ton, or 
a dollar more per acre ? Some would not entertain 
the question for a moment, but would tell the lie with 
the quickness and ease of instinct. 

A drinking and billiard saloon is opened. No very 
great fortune can be made at it, — not more than in 
some useful handicraft. For the sake of profit so 
small, a man will be willing to imperil the morals of 
youth and men with gray hairs, seducing them to 
laziness, gambling, and intemperance. He lives in an 
atmosphere of low thought, breathes vulgarity and 
consents to it, partly because he never conceived that 
the world had anything purer. To his vision sin is 
concealed, its profits hide its enormity from his sight ; 
and to his mind it is the least conceivable objection to 
any act or course, to say it is wrong. 

On that memorable Friday, when gold ran up to 
such giddy heights in New York, and gambling in 
gold raged with such maniacal force, the newspapers 
say a western man telegraphed his broker in Wall 
Street to buy him gold to a certain amount, which was 
done. Later he telegraphed his broker to sell and 
remit the proceeds. The gain was $28,000. With 
that sum before his eyes, how could he see the guilt 
of gambling? Many on that day, able to issue such 
orders, piit their property in peril, as did that west- 
ern man, and lost, losing large fortunes and turning 
themselves out of valuable homesteads. And many, 



70 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



unable to issue such orders, wished they had the 
power. Speedy gains concealed the guilt of gam- 
bling, and all that side of desolatian and ruin which 
lies opposite to its gains, brought by luck as modified 
by skill of knavery. Forgetting its false principles, 
its lack of legitimate productiveness, its side of loss 
and ruin, and looking only at some notable instance 
of gain, how many let its speedy gains hide entirely 
its guilt. 

Even where there is a professed conformity to the 
legitimate principles of business, the respectability of 
sin hides the wrong it may come handy to commit. 
Defrauding creditors, failing rich, where the rascality 
is so neatly done that officers of the law find no 
chance to rip up the fraud, a cheating in w^hich the 
ingenuity or covetousness outwits all the wisdom of 
legislation, — how often thus the gain and the sharp- 
ness of the trickery conceal the guilt from the eyes 
of the actors, and even from others who should have 
clearer vision. 

The use of third parties as innocent purchasers, 
lack of legal proof by deft concealment, limitations 
of time taken advantage of, and other weak points 
which show our laws to be of human origin, have 
been the turning-points of amassment and success in 
the history of many a fortune. And the large gains 
thus made sure, while without the security and honor 
of honestly-gained wealth, hide from the possessors 
the guilt which should make them uneasy in their 
gains. The stain of guilt is on many a fortune ; but 
what care the awners if the respectability and power 
of their possessions enable them to carry themselves 



COXCEALMEyrS OF .SIX 



71 



bravely before men ? For present power and position 
conscience can be hushed, human rebuke and even 
eternal retributions can be braved. 

Sin is concealed, too, by the insignificance of the 
acts in which it is sometimes illustrated. TThen the 
cheat amounts only to a few cents ; when the wrong 
works damage to some insignificant personage ; when 
the lie wrought only an inconvenience ; when failure 
in the contract brought only small loss ; when the 
uncharitableness involved only temporary suffering ; 
the sin is hidden by the insignificance of the results. 
To have care for such peccadilloes seems like holding 
conscience under bonds of fastidiousness. 

There is no fixed zero point, as with thermometers. 
It is a sliding-scale. Every sin seems small, if only 
a little larger than one usually commits, even when 
his ordinary sins are crimes at which most would 
shudder. With slight uneasiness, some commit sins 
that would sorely wound the conscience of others. 
The murderous blow that enables the robber to carry 
out his plans is so slight a departure from his ordi- 
nary conduct that it gives him no uneasiness. Habit 
and familiarity help in the same line. A long in- 
dulged sin has all thought of guilt dropped out of 
it. Only when it works some unusual disturbance, 
or brings some unwonted damage, will its character 
as sin arrest the notice of the perpetrator. So, even, 
the natui'al laws of mental action help to hide sin, 
and give the Kingdom of Evil success. 

Sin is concealed by not being seen in its perfected 
fruit, only in its flower. The full hai'vest of woe is 
not seen in its beauteous flower. The murderer saw 



72 



SUCCESS OF EVIL, 



no guilt of blood in the lust of gain he nourished. 
He was intoxicated with the power of wealth. For 
its increase he was barred by no knavery, and so 
the way was opened for the guilt of blood, no sight 
of which did he see in his early-nursed passion for 
gain. What drunkenness does a young man see in 
his pleasant tippling? By the way he is entering 
others have gone ; he is enchanted with the festivi- 
ties that led them to ruin. The hilarious gayety of 
companionable drinking is all he can see. He has 
not gone far enough in corrupting his physical sys- 
tem with the disease of drunkenness to find in his 
bodily condition any urgent call for intoxicants. He 
is in pursuit only of merriment, and cares only to 
meet the misconceived demands of social festivity ; 
so he sees not the woes of intemperance and its kin- 
dred vices that lie further on. Even when he has 
gone further and finds in his physical state reason 
for a resort to the cup, a little easement of disa- 
greeable sensations is all that he looks for. He sees 
only the flower. What time will bring, what lies 
further on, — the wretchedness and ruin of drunken- 
ness, — are totally concealed from his sight. All the 
ways that grow so devious and end at last in vice and 
crime, verge off from the path of rectitude by such 
imperceptible degrees, that the divergence is not 
detected. Ordinary forecast takes in no such distant 
results. But there is a crowding in that direction ; 
the movement may be unsteady and irregular; it 
may be terribly swift; but if no retractive move- 
ment be begun, the end will be reached and found to 
be ruin. 



CONCEALMENTS OF SIN. 



73 



Concealment of sin is an element of success in the 
Kingdom of Evil. To the subjects of that Kingdom 
the horizon of life shuts down close by ; the results 
of conduct, lying beyond the boundary of this life, 
appear little to them, less controlling over conduct 
than the weather, of less importance than the busi- 
ness of to-morrow. Business that exceeds not five 
dollars per day, pleasures that might not be thought 
possible of engaging the thoughts of any above the 
age of childhood, conceal, day after day, through years, 
the central realities and verities of life. These veri- 
ties are not the considerations by which their plans 
are shaped, in which their powers find stimulus, b}^ 
which feelino-s are reo^ulated and all convictions mod- 
ified. In concealment from these verities sin works 
and so finds success. 

And yet this concealment is no easy matter. Society 
in all its forms of organization seems as if constructed 
on purpose to keep sin from dropping out of notice. 
It is a force working in society, against which, on all 
sides, men must defend themselves by a constant 
warfare. Nevertheless, sin works in concealment ; is 
counted a trifle by how many otherwise intelligent 
men ; is hidden by the adornments wherewith it is 
garnished by its immediate profits, by the petty acts 
in which it is illustrated, the homoeopathic doses in 
which it is ofiered ; by being seen in incipient growths 
and not in full fruitage ; and by the respectability of 
its success. 

And this is a fruitful element of success in the 

Kingdom of Evil. Sin kept in concealment, counted 

only a trifle, who will hold it the central object and 
6 



74 



SUCCi:SS OF EVIL. 



highest aim of life to make war against a hidden 
trifle ? Who will shape his plans and adjust himself to 
the discipline of life, to work himself free from sin's 
power? And who will raise any earnest cry to God 
for deliverance ? So sin comes to be a controlling 
power in many a business, an impulse in many a heart, 
a crystallizing force in many a family, and a dominant 
spirit in society. 



CHAPTER YIII. 



SPIRITUAL INDISCRIMINATION. 

MOST persons are puzzled iu trying to conceive 
the experience of a royal personage, as Queen 
Victoria. There is a difference in queens, as seen in 
contrasting the reigning Queen of England and the 
exiled Queen of Spain. But take such a queen as 
Victoria, one who has failed in no function of queen- 
hood, how different her outlook upon life from that 
of her average subjects ! Beneath her is a political 
and social order, both vast and intricate, in all its 
layers and relations so adjusted and constructed that 
she may be its head, a kingdom that she may wear a 
crown. 

It would bother one to enumerate even in thought 
all the materials and constituent parts of a nation ; 
but all these, to remotest colony and humblest official, 
have reference to her. Born to such an inheritance ; 
coming into peaceable possession of it while in the 
bloom of maidenhood ; taking for her help the hus- 
band of her choice ; holding unquestioned possession 
of her throne for a long life-time, and expecting to 
leave it as the undisputed possession of her descend- 
ants, — here is a life, in outward conditions, as wide 
as possible from the average of her subjects. 



76 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



Yet, when we tear off the outward husk, forget 
the external show, conditions, and circumstances ot 
her life, and come to the inward reality of personal 
history, we find the commonness of human experi- 
ence standing out in marked prominence. As a 
maiden, w^oman, wife, mother, and widow, Queen 
Victoria has thoughts, convictions, emotions, long- 
ings, fears, anxieties, hopes, sorrows, and rejoicings, 
common to every other maiden, woman, wife, mother, 
and widow, tinged to some different color, shaped to 
some different form, yet the same substantially. 

So in the less marked extremes found in this coun- 
try, the man who combines in his own person and 
condition greatest wealth, broadest views, richest 
culture, and most generous spirit, contrasted with 
some poorest, naiTowest, and ignorantest man, — 
the differences strike the mind first, and are all that 
some can see. They are prominent and palpable, 
showing themselves in habitation, dress, manners, 
gait, occupation, in style of language, range of 
thought, and in every exhibition which the two 
make of themselves every hour of the day. Even 
exchange of home and dress could not hide the 
most marked differences. 

Passing from the outward and looking at the in- 
ward experience of these two men, the differences 
begin to fade away and their similarities become more 
prominent. Hunger and cold pinch each. The re- 
freshment of sleep comes as gratefully to the one as to 
the other. Success and failure help and hinder each 
alike. To each the truths of mathematics and morals 
speak the same language. Conscience speaks in the 



SPIRITUAL INDISCRIMINATION. 



11 



same tones. The kindness of love, the inspiration of 
hope, the depreysment of fear, the pressure of anxi- 
ety, and the weight of sorrow lay equal hand on both. 
Each finds difficulties as hard to surmount, life's strug- 
o^les as full of strains. Takino: the substantial con- 
tents of their lives, what is offered to them through 
the senses, what is done by the involuntary action of 
the mind, by impulse of social feeling, the similari- 
ties of human nature overcount the differences ; and 
despite the latter we say : " A man 's a man for a' 
that." 

Where this doctrine of man's wholeness prevails, 
civil law helps to keep the essential similarity in 
view. In some States it took a man and $250 to vote ; 
ordinarily, a man can do it without help of property, 
and, since the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, 
without any question as to complexion. So, if a man 
is murdered, the law does not stop to inquire whether 
he was rich or poor, learned or ignorant, white or 
black. It is enough that he was a man. Or, if one 
be guilty of crime, his station in life, his natural gifts, 
his acquired powers, or his neglect to make more of 
himself, avail nothing in a court of justice. "Equal- 
ity before the law " gives each his chance. The chief 
things in this equality are the divine bestowments, as 
in essential powers of body and mind, materials nec- 
essary to living, conditions for activity, a fair chance 
at life's work ; in what men are made to be originally, 
and in what is offered to their acceptance, are found 
their main similarities. From this somewhat varied, 
yet common level, they start. 

When, now, we come to turn this whole matter 



78 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



round and look at it on the other side, when we come 
to see how men have modified their original powers, 
how they have taken what was offered them through 
nature and society, the uses to which they have put 
themselves, their opportunities and surroundings ; 
then their similarities begin to fade away ; prominent 
characteristics and differences come into view. Even 
the civil law, which tried to hold all men to an equal- 
ity in its presence, begins to esteem and handle them 
very differently. Some it lets go free through life, 
choosing their own abode, occupation, and associates, 
careful oul}^ to protect them in their enjoyment of 
essential rights. Others it suddenly arrests in their 
enjoyments and pursuits, calls them to account, puts 
them under bonds", amerces them, or hurries them off 
to prison, there to stay for years, perhaps for life; 
and the law counts itself competent to hurry a man 
out of life by a sudden and violent death. 

But where this may not be, whatever the convicted 
murderer's desire to walk forth on the broad earth 
among men, to breathe the free air of heaven and look 
up into its star-lit dome ; however restless his crav- 
ing to put body and mind into the work and struggle 
of life ; however earnest his longing to keep himself 
in the affinities and attractions of social life, and in 
the endearment of domestic relations, — he must enter 
into that dungeon where he may hear the roar of life 
around him, but from which he may never come forth, 
till Death turns jailer. Those powers of body and 
mind which made him ache for the struggle and toil 
of life, must lie in rusting disuse, sinking to idiocy 
or fretting themselves into insanity ; those impulses 



SPIRITUAL INDISCRIMINATION. 



79 



of social and domestic life must be denied all mani- 
festation and reciprocity, till the heart shall become 
as dead and cold as the idiotic mind, or as frenzied 
as the maniac's. Even the civil law counts itself jus- 
tified in giving men such treatment. 

Although social life cannot go to such extremes, 
it is even more critical in detecting differences among 
men, and has more emphatic ways of pronouncing its 
convictions. Society throws up invisible yet formi- 
dable barriers which certain may not pass. Families 
in the same neighborhood have as little to do with 
each other as if separated by a Babel-confusion 
of tongues ; though living on the same street, yet as 
far separated as intervening miles could make them : 
" So near and yet so far." Where society has become 
intensely organized, large expenditures have been 
made and much snubbing endured in the attempt to 
gain a higher grade of social life. The attempt of 
the suddenly rich to pass themselves into circles of 
better culture, and the rebuff they meet upon expos- 
ure of their uncouth manners, their bad grammar, 
and stolid ignorance, have formed ready themes for 
wit and ridicule. 

Passing the artificial distinctions which wealth 
builds up, more substantial laws of separation are 
found. One of these is diversity of culture. There 
are men whose range of thought is so much above 
another's that they have little in common, scarcely 
touch beyond the theme of weather. What works 
equally well in maintaining separations is a jealous 
sensitiveness, fearing any exposure of thought or sen- 
timent, lest it should betray ignorance or weakness. 



80 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



and so wound self-vanity. Suspicion works separa- 
tion. One sees some betterment of condition or cul- 
ture in others, and in his lack of magnanimity thinks 
such better men have the same supercilious pride he 
would feel, and so holds himself aloof, as if contact 
would bring him under contempt of this imaginary 
pride. 

Passing all separations coming from diversity of 
natural powers, education, position, and from the use 
one has made of outward opportunities and social 
surroundings, we come upon the deepest and broad- 
est differences; and these are found in moral char- 
acter. Here are differences which even the civil law 
recognizes and can measure with its coarse instru- 
ments. It aims to sift out from among the people all 
lawless and criminal men. All differences, even the 
greatest, it cannot notice. It arrests and brings to 
punishment only men convicted of moral turpitude 
as violators of civil law. 

The chai acteristic qualities of manhood come not 
from outward condition, not from surroundings nor 
from orio inal o-ifts. For moral character is the hio'h- 
est and most definitive quality of manhood. " Not 
that which enters into a man defileth," or ennobleth 
him. Not gifts of natural endowment, not original 
powers, genius, position, inheritance, or bestowment ; 
not what is offered to him, but what comes from him ; 
not what he takes, but what he gives, determines his 
moral character. It is manufactured in him, and is 
known only as he gives it out. 

This process of manufacture is constantly going 
on. One takes certain definite laws of conduct, as 



SPIRITUAL indiscrimixation: 81 

to enjoy himself, to do as lie pleases, to act as present 
interest or impulse requires, or as is most accordant 
with the spirit and tone of surrounding society ; an- 
other takes, as principles of conduct, the law of God, 
the law of right, the law of love. One has certain 
aims, as, to enjoy life, to increase his wealth, to 
gratify his ambition ; another has, as his aim, to 
secure God's favor and renewing grace, and thus the 
salvation of his soul. One walks after the flesh ; 
another after the spirit. One lives wholly for what 
is in this world ; another for the grand things of im- 
mortality. One separates his soul from God ; an- 
other allies his soul to God. And so the cardinal 
distinction of sinner and Christian arises, running its 
line of demarcation through society, to spiritual 
discernment the orreatest difference amons^ men. 

Here are two sorts. There are more. Xot more 
varied are human faces than human souls. Souls are 
as varied as are human condition, experience, and the 
ways these are taken; for these fashion souls. On 
the same level and even in the same family condition 
varies, and experience more, since it is varied by the 
way condition is taken. Xo parent can train any two 
children exactly alike. Shades of temperament, 
tones of disposition, require different handling. And 
what is alike in treatment is taken in a different way, 
and so brings a varied product of character ; no two 
alike, more than foregone and fashion©^ experi- 
ence. 

The same thing is repeated in adult life. Here 
condition varies even more than in childhood. If 
seemingly, in general, the same, it is made differ- 



82 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



ent by variety of disposition. Thus condition, to all 
appearance the same, contents one and frets another, 
making that similar condition very dissimilar. Tem- 
perament, disposition, health, connections, pressure 
and direction of ambition, one's tact and culture, 
make conditions of life different, even if before they 
had been adjusted to nicest similarity. Even in con- 
ditions so alike as to afford no discoverable difference, 
some most fortuitous circumstance, a casual remark, 
some impression of nature, or any most trifling event 
may turn the stream of life in one direction or 
another, settle it into some rut of habit, making 
life and soul a changed product. Turning thus from 
condition to the way it is taken, to each one's action, 
responsive to truth, providence, reason, conscience, 
surroundings, and associations, considering all that is 
comprised in experience, we find causes of diversity 
adequate to account for all differences ; even if it be 
proved that, with souls as with faces, there is only 
one of a sort. 

The differences among men, and especially those 
pertaining to moral character, are not found simply 
by the curious and inquisitive. The action of society 
brings them out. Every man is constantly publish- 
ing himself. Even if he be secretive, he must pub- 
lish that fact. The attractions of life lead men to 
betray themselves ; and when these fail, its frictions 
wear off the varnish and show the grain of a man's 
disposition. And so comes the humiliating fact, that 
men generally are better understood than they sup- 
pose. This holds true of all nicest shades of differ- 
ence, and much more, of that greatest difference 



SPIRITUAL INDISCRIMINATION. 



83 



found between Christian and sinner, whenever ac- 
quaintance discloses character. 

Many are blind in discerning character, giving the 
theme no study. Then, too, sinful and Christian 
characters in tliis life are in a embryotic state, yet to 
come to mature development ; still, even under these 
difficulties, their differences stands out prominently in 
the convictions of discerning men. This is the most 
marked separation running through society. And it 
would seem as if God had ordered all the conditions 
and appointments of life so as to keep it perpetually 
in sight. Each man is compelled habitually to run 
to the court of conscience with points for adjudica- 
tion, and then afford illustration. Perpetually, as 
time comes, comes the question, how to use it. The 
strong enginery of life will not let a man stand still ; 
yet he cannot stir without giving shape or confirma- 
tion to moral character. Wants press him to a per- 
petual doing, and that involves a constant drill in 
moralities. Men are brought into such relations of 
business, into such affinities of friendship, into such 
ties of domestic life, that to be is to do, and to do is 
to give character nearer perfection in sin or holiness. 
Competition in business, contest in rivalship, conflict 
of interests, which bring such a close set-to of strug- 
gle, put character into shape and show, this or that^f 
sinful or Christian. No day goes by, hardly an 
hour, in which demonstrations are not made, visible 
to each one's consciousness, and more visible to 
others than is comfortable to self-respect. 

In consequence, here and there, in beautiful con- 
sistency and with cheering light, shines the grace of 



84 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



humility, or resignation, or peace, charity, purity, 
the heavenly-mindeduess of genuine sainthood, in 
all sorts of homes, from highest to humblest. Here 
and there can be seen inflexibility of principle, brav- 
ery of faith, dignity of Christian balance, — all these 
amid provocations that fret and craze others out of 
their proprieties. 

And then sin, not to be behind in anything, must 
publish itself, even if thereby it publish its shame, 
according to God's everlasting decree. Its shame is 
too common, its sounds too familiar to need descrip- 
tion. The world is full of it. It would seem that 
pride, if not manly self-respect, would lead the sin- 
ner to be more modest with his attainments. But in 
the level where he stands, in the associates he gath- 
ers, in the assemblages to which he resorts, in the 
spirit he indulges, and in the bearing he carries towards 
others, he is putting into conspicuous n ess the sinful- 
ness, and not less the shame, of his character. The 
ordinary appointments of life marshal men out into 
segregation. Who go to the sanctuary, and who to the 
saloon ; who to the prayer-meeting and who to the 
gaming hall ; who worship on the Sabbath, and who 
ride out for pleasure ; who find recreation in the 
sanctities of home, and who among the promiscuous 
characters in a public ball-room, — these are well un- 
derstood. Society is very frank with her disclosures. 
Men have hardly pride enough to win self-respect. 
Then there is always some great question on hand, 
half moral, half political, or purely moral ; or some 
great enterprise of progress, here and there touching 
the welfare of society, helping, to establish truth, or 



SPIRITUAL INDISCRIMINATION. 



85 



give the gospel wider sweep ; and these questions no 
sooner get to the heat of debate, than men arrange 
themselves on this side or that, as if on purpose to 
announce their moral characters. 

Now, in the face of all these distinctions, differ- 
ences so broad, visible, and palpable, shown up in 
such variety, placed in such wide separation, and held 
up so persistently to the gaze of all men, the King- 
dom of Evil, in its very genius and spirit, by varied 
and constant inculcation, is producing in the minds 
of its subjects the conviction, that all men stand 
about on a level, — some better in some respects, 
others in others ; that all have about an equally fair 
chance and about equal success ; they are on differ- 
ent levels, have different aims, but get along equally 
well — for them ; all in the same boat, and may 
expect, at last, like treatment and compassion from 
the same pitying God. 

This is the indiscriminating generality of a lazy 
universalism. No breadth of view, no keen insight, 
no deep convictions ; but a shiftless, shirking gener- 
alization, that overlooks all differences and lumps all 
sorts together. Having the free air in common, 
partaking of nature's bounties together, having like 
wants, powers, and impulses, these men of generali- 
ties take such outward and material facts of condi- 
tion to foretoken like treatment all the way through. 
They forget that moral government has to do with 
moral character ; and that moral character comes not 
from what is offered to man, but from the way he 
takes it, from the response he makes to all God's 
disclosures and dealings. 



86 



SUCCi:SS OF EVIL. 



This element of power and prevalence in the King- 
dom of Evil is not at all, or at least less, a conviction 
affirmed by reason and sanctioned by conscience, 
than a vague impression, an unsifted feeling, that re- 
fuses to be confronted by truth, or to give itself into 
the handling of argument. And just for this reason 
it has greater power and sway. It prevails with that 
large class, the heedless, men who feel safe enough, 
resting on a guess that matters will come out right in 
the end. 

Let this conviction, or, if it have not warrant 
enough to be a conviction, this feeling have sway, 
and how easy matters will go. Some care may be 
necessary to keep from conflict with the civil law, to 
preserve reputation and good standing in society ; 
but, aside from this, what a free-and-easy life a man 
can live. Xo severe discipline, no struggles for bet- 
terment, no war against impulses, no restraint upon 
appetite, no bridle on the tongue, no crucitixion of 
lusts, no longings for a higher life, no prayer for de- 
liverance, no attempt at rescue, backed up by con- 
flicts and crowned with victories : hardly a heedless 
concern for present or future. Under such regimen, 
how surely will a man run down : how safely included 
in the Kingdom of Evil. He stands in a bog that has 
no reactive ground from which he can begin ascent. 

The Kingdom of Evil is so much a success, up and 
down the ages and the world over, because in the 
minds of indiscriminating men the feeling prevails 
that all are about alike, and may expect like treatment 
from the All-Merciful. This feeling is in opposition 
to what is most visible and multiplied in society. It 



SPIRITUAL m DISCRIMINATION. 



87 



disintegrates moral government and character, and 
fuses all convictions into a blind guess. Yet men let 
that feeling have sway. It fashions their lives, keeps 
them aloof from all struggles for salvation, and proves 
itself an essential and prolific element of success in 
the Kingdom of Evil. 

Sin, taken in all its length and breadth, in its 
height and depth, in its history and results, is the 
most stupendous cheat with which the human mind 
ever had to do. Taking up either its principles or 
projects, its methods or results, it would seem an 
easy task for reason to prove, that from the start it 
should be a failure, as it will be in the long run ; 
since what is eternally and infinitely fit will become 
real. But the end is not yet. So, against all ante- 
cedent probabilities, seemingly certainties of failure, 
the Kingdom of Evil has come to respectable success, 
at least in this world ; not in some eras or countries, 
but the world over, and through all history. And 
this fact, though without justifications, is not without 
reasons. 



CHAPTER IX. 



PERVERTED MENTAL ACTION. 

UPON the ocean, on the land, on hill-top and val- 
ley, field and forest, wherever the light shines, 
every ray is true to the law of its motion. Light 
and shade, shine and shadow, everywhere present 
themselves just as the laws of light require. If con- 
ditions of refraction exist, the rays are refracted 
without any stubbornness or exception. In its reflec- 
tion every ray is mathematically exact. Angles of 
incidence and reflection preserve their equality in all 
cases, even if infinite in number. If conditions of 
polarization exist, then light is polarized. Light 
asks for no humoring, has no waywardness to be 
overcome by persuasion ; over longest distances 
there is no lagging behind ; unwatched, it follows its 
law, as if under the gaze of a thousand philosophers. 
Into eyes of beast, bird, and insect it photographs 
pictures with the same exquisite perfection as into 
human eyes. And it serves the eyes of ignorantest 
men with the same care and nicety as if they had 
given years to studying the laws of light. 

So, taking any other power in nature, it would be 
found to prove itself true to the law of its action in 



PERVERTED MENTAL ACTION. 



89 



all cases. From the growth of tiniest plant to the 
motion of a planet wheeling round the sun, nowhere 
a blunder. Diseased action there is, because disease 
has come to be one of the forces of nature which has 
its law of action ; and these, unarrested, it follows 
with fell certainty. Bat refusal is nowhere found in 
the realm of nature ; amid all her voices there is not 
heard — "I won't." 

When, however, we come up to the level of moral 
beings, we begin to hear dissent uttered in emphatic 
tones. And the rebellion, here started, is so grcii^ 
a disturbance that it must carry damage into all its 
surroundings. It mars what might be thought re- 
mote from its influence, as seen in the wreck indul- 
gence of passion brings to the body. Much more 
would we expect it to mar what is nearer, the mental 
powers. Comparatively few minds, even under the 
discipline of education and the training of logic, act 
with precision and comprehensiveness, both in the 
matters they handle and in what they refuse. Most 
minds have slid away into various approximations to 
insanity, or are in stages of only partial recovery 
therefrom. 

Had thought the precision and certainty of light 
in its action, all minds might not come to the same 
conclusion in matters taken up for study, because 
of difierent antecedents or from occupying diverse 
points of observation. A road travelled in one 
direction, looks very difierent upon retracement. 
But travelling the same road, though in opposite 
directions, two persons can talk intelligently of its 
scenes and way-marks, And life does not present 



90 



success OF EVIL. 



stancl-poiuts so wide apart that the parallax of any, 
and especially trans-mundane objects, amounts' to 
much. 

Yet how diverse the modes of thought and oppo- 
site the views held on almost any subject. Take any 
art of livelihood, any mode of business, any depart- 
ment of philosophy, eesthetics, or politics ; why, from 
the same premises, do men come to such different 
conclusions? Why does not the "mechanism of 
thought " act with the precision and certainty of 
light? Then, when we come to the highest of all 
themes, religion, we find widest diversities. How 
much these are increased by the moral states of the 
thinkers, cannot be definitely told. These bring their 
aggravation, no doubt ; but perverted mental action 
has its influence here, as in business, as in arts, phi- 
losophy, sesthetics, and politics. And when religion 
is taken in hand, the Kingdom of Evil finds an ele- 
ment of success in perverted mental action. 

It is in confirmation of this that men do not hold 
religion to be the highest theme open for study and 
as inchiding man's true welfare. It can be proved 
to be just this ; yet what proportion of men hold it 
iu such esteem? If it has the warrant of reasons, 
why do not all thus hold it ? In this age of material 
improvement, how, for success in business, is consid- 
eration of religion put aside ? Not merely are reli- 
<A(jn and business held in antao^onism as conflictinof 
interests, but business is put in ascendency and re- 
ligion held subordinate. Justification is sought for 
neglecting any interest of religion, or violation of 
solemn vows by one plea, — "I was busy," or, " Busi- 



FEB VERTED MENTAL ACTION. 



91 



ness preyented." Success in business, in accordance 
with the moralities of religion or in contravention ot 
them, is held paramount to all claims of religion by 
so many, that the Kingdom of Evil finds an element 
of success in the perverted way of thinking now cur- 
rent. 

This idolatry of business was not always dominant 
as now. Time was when men were afflicted with no 
such craze of worldliness. Once, men were inter- 
ested in the study of philosophy. Never in times of 
speculation has business, or politics in presidential 
canvass, taken such possession of the minds of men, 
as questions of philosophy have. Time was when a 
whole city cared most " to hear some new thing." 
Such questions occupied the thinking of the age. 
Under banners of philosophy, parties were mar- 
shalled. Men congregated to hear lectures on phi- 
losophy, as now to transact business in chambers of 
commerce. Men went abroad to study questions of 
philosophy, as now to carry out some scheme of com- 
merce or railroad enterprise. The great men of 
those times were not "railroad kings," millionnaires, 
nor merchant princes, but men of letters and phil- 
osophy. 

In another age chivalry was the great thing, and 
gave the age its ruling bent. Humanity in all its 
specimens was measured and weighed by the chival- 
rous spirit found in each. TVealth was nothing, even 
learning nothing, save as that wealth was consecrated 
to chivalry, and that learning gave the chivalrous 
spirit a more gallant tone. This was not the amuse- 
ment of the dissipated few who were above the hard 



9:? 



OF EVIL. 



necessity of work : but. like fi^-kien. it tc'.k posses- 
sion of society in ail its ranges, jn^t a- tke n:a:-aial 
progi'ess of tnis age keeps all poorest men toiling and 

Even rekgo. n r.as keen tke great aksorbing interest 
of an age. klen vrere tnoii^kt of. nor as rick or p>oor, 
bur as ak^voing to tnis rek_kn y: :aa:, Xot terri- 
torial enlargement of kingd'j-m. UjI a i':n.':a"in^ balance 
of trade, not monopoly of commerce, bn: e-:alksk- 
menr of tkis religion or tkat. was ^k:;: arr>-:v.l a::en- 
ti:n :.n;^ " an."ak->;l d:^';n-k''n in r^^'val -a'kn::-. ^Vka: 



as discussed by tke people. IN ever k: 



kas rekgion ; less, kovrever. as a law of k:e. :kan 
as a sckeme of doLtrines. and still more as a state 
policy. It vas tbe pokk:s ':f rke a^'c. rnkng tke 
tkcir^kts. making itself tke bur.k-n :■: ak cbirf discus- 
sions, and even tke rallying" cry of battle. 

Tkat vra.s long ■-:k:r ? tkere came tkis prr-sen: :raze 
of vrorldliness under "v_::k we nrw suzer. and ""mien 
some tkink a-s a perpetu:k inkrmky under wkich tke 
race kas siniered in aU its ages. Tke kuman mind 

wkee^ r:und. Present greed for gam kas n;t always 
been, wik not always be. tke ruling: passion. Some 
kave reacned freedom from it. even now. Tkat it is 
now tke rnkng passion, cannot be denied. To de- 
vel'jp tke resources of tke world, and especiak v : tnis 
XewTTorld, of all waste lands and waste ikrces. kas 



PERVERTED MENTAL ACTIOX. 



93 



place in the great schemes God is carrying on. But 
this strain will not always last. It will give place to 
the better things for which it is providiDg. While 
it lasts, it is not strange, that, to minds perverted in 
their action and helped to no enlargement by faith, 
business should be held in conflict with religion, and 
paramount to it ; and that thus the whole subject of 
religion should be overlooked by the many suffering 
under constricted mental action ; nor that hereby the 
Kingdom of Evil finds success. 

But to those who give religion any thought, vicious 
wavs of thinkinof orive the Kins^dom of Evil further 
elements of success, by misconceiving the very nature 
of religion. One would expect, that in its essential 
nature, it would be found a very simple matter. It 
is not simply for the learned, the wise, for men who 
have leisure to study and speculate on high themes 
and abstruse subjects. It is also for men who must 
maintain a daily fight against starvation, who have 
stomachs that cannot be neglected, and skins that 
must be protected against weather. It is for men 
whose minds have never been liberalized by study, 
who have no gifts for nice distinctions ; for men who 
cannot give exact definitions, and are not versed in 
profound thought. 

What, then, would we expect religion to be, unless 
God meant to tantalize us with it ? A very simple 
matter, coming within comprehension of unlettered 
men, capable of being grasped by men unused to 
subtleties of nice distinctions and abstruse specula- 
tions, and even by children. It is only a right life 
instead of a wrong life. All men live a life ; every 



94 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



one is compelled to know how to do that : and reli- 
gion is only a life rightly lived. As a life, it takes 
in all the contents of life, demanding them to be 
right and fitting to the relations sustained. 

The senses show man in his relations to his fellows. 
Eeligion, then, must involve a rightly-lived life in 
all relations to them. Here come into play all the 
graces and moralities arising from loving his neigh- 
bor as himself. In these relations he acted before, 
it may be with a supreme regard to himself. But 
loving his neighbor as himself, he will do unto others 
as he would have them do to him : and so one whole 
table of the divine law is obediently fulfilled. What 
is simpler to conceive than this changed mode of 
life ? He keeps at work the powers whose use has 
filled up his life so far, only he uses them in a differ- 
ent way, under another principle, and with a new 
spirit. 

While the natural powers show man in his rela- 
tions to his fellows, faith shows him in his relations 
to God. He is still to live a life; religion only 
requires that it be rightly lived in Godward as in 
other relations. And what do existing relations to 
God recjuire ? Simply that he accept God as revealed, 
the Creator and Supreme Euler, the Eedeemer and 
Saviour of men : trust him as the Eedeemer, love him 
as the Saviour, and obey him as the Supreme Euler. 
This involves repentance for sin, faith in the atone- 
ment for sin, a humble and prayerful Christian life. 
Eeligion in practice is simply to accept the situation, 
to take the facts as they are, and live accordingly. 
Taking our surroundings as they are, comprehending 



PERVERTED MENTAL Ai^TION. 



95 



truly the soul's relations, estimating rightly its 
powers, and putting them to fittest use, religion 
becomes the most fitting and reasonable life a man 
can live. 

Yet on no subject are the minds of men more be- 
fogged. This comes, in part, from lack of thought, 
and from a blindness which sin somehow begets. 
However intelligently the gospel has been preached 
to men in the years of their former history, when 
they come to see their sinfulness, to apprehend their 
danger, and seek to enter the way of salvation, the 
ordinary inquiry is, "What shall I do to be saved?" 
That a pagan jailer in Philippi, who had never heard 
a sermon, should make such inquiry, is not strange ; 
but that it should be the standing inquiry of men 
accustomed to hearing the gospel, shows either a 
strange lack of thought, or a blindness of mind, which 
sin in its universally damaging power brings upon the 
purely mental activity. 

Misconceptions in religion come in part from wrong 
instruction ; but that is only to trace the difficulty 
back one step, where again we find the mind working 
abnormall}^ falling into perverted habits of thought 
as it comes to handle religion. So is it in the larger 
half of the nominally Christian church ; where reli- 
gion is not a life lived, as the word of God and the 
nature of the case clearly show it to be, but a work 
done, opus oj^eratum; and once done, even supere- 
rogative, a basis for indulgences ; so much religion 
accumulated, just as well-spent toil is so much capital 
created. 

Clearly where such misconceptions prevail as to the 



96 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



nature of religion, the Kingdom of Evil will find in 
such errors an element of success. The opposing 
interest to the Kins^dom of Evil is the King^dom of 
Christ. Nothing limits or restrains the one, except 
the other. In the Eangdom of Christ, religion is a 
life rightly lived by the soul, that soul's right action 
in all manward and Godward relations, that soul's 
right use of its powers, a personal quality. That 
perverted mental action which misconceives the na- 
ture of religion, which makes it a work done, capa- 
ble of accumulation by religious acts, as capital is by 
industrj^, finds no use for itself in the Kingdom of 
Christ, belongs to the Kingdom of Evil, and in that 
.Kin2:dom is a laro-e element of success. For there 
are millions on the earth who hold this misconcep- 
tion, represented in that Ecumenical Council at Eome, 
plotting to hold the world to the ideas current in the 
Dark Ages. Theologically, organically, and numer- 
ically, here is a large element of success in the King- 
dom of Evil ; indeed, no inconsiderable part of that 
Kingdom, as organized in the world, is to be found 
in that hierarchy, under which a j^er verted mental 
action holds religion to be a work done. To this 
view we are reluctantly compelled by the known 
character of the papal church, without denying that 
it contains many Christian people, and without 
opening debate as to what that church may yet 
become. 

Misconceptions of the nature of religion may be 
expected whenever the mind is perverted in its ac- 
tion, and that is wherever sin is working its damage. 
Xot as a life rightly lived in all Godward and man- 



PERVERTED MENTAL ACTION. 



97 



ward relations, but as a work done, religion is held 
by many an adherent of Protestantism. Perhaps in 
every Protestant congregation, and without close 
search, men can be found who have hope of final sal- 
vation, yet are without any intelligent view of what 
constitutes religion, and poor success in reducing to 
practice what religious convictions they hold. It is 
plain to others, if not to their own dull minds and 
duller consciences, that they have failed to enthrone 
the first principles of religion to authority in their 
minds. They keep on the level of ordinary morali- 
ties with such success as those sinners have who go 
in good society. As to anything characteristically 
religious, it is entirely wanting, beyond a few relig- 
ious observances, as to go to church with the ordinary 
regularity of fair-weather attendants, and supporting 
the institutions of religion in a way whose meagre- 
ness and dilatoriness give sore trial to others' pa- 
tience. 

Beyond the proprieties of ordinary morality, they 
find one other proof of Christian character, lying 
away remotely in the history of former years, when 
conscience was stirred, fears aroused, and feelings 
excited in a way quite unusual. In this general dis- 
turbance on the subject of religion, they opened not 
their hearts to God's regenerating grace, and repent- 
ance did not turn them into the ways of Christian 
living. Felt unworthiness led to no trust in the Ee- 
deemer, loyalty of heart to no consecration of them- 
selves to God and his services. They found no ad- 
justment to a prayerful, humble, and Christian way 
of living, no adoption of gospel principles as a law 



98 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



of life, no opening of the heart to the indwelling of 
God's Spirit, and, in consequence, no joy and peace 
in believing. 

At length their convictions wore off, their fears 
subsided, their excitement died away, and, under 
much mental confusion, they followed others in join- 
ing the church. Instead of making good their Chris- 
tian profession, they are found living on the same 
principles, for the same ends, and in the same spirit 
as before. Essentially they are the same in charac- 
ter ; yet they have had an experience on the subject 
of religion, which they counted becoming religious. 
They imagine religion to be a fact in their history, a 
thing done, though hardly amounting to any super- 
erogation, and to this they come for comfort when the 
well-warranted fear arises, that life gives no charac- 
teristic proof of piety. 

In our churches are to be found such men ; by 
their profession they shield themselves from that 
address of the gospel which befits sinners. They rely 
upon an historical experience, which their dull and 
perversely-acting minds have never analyzed to see 
that it was not an experience of God's regenerating 
grace. So they have a religion, not lived as a 
life, but held historically ; a thing done, like the 
prayers and penances of the papist, and of as little 
value. 

By such confusion of thought and perverseness of 
mental action, men come to misapprehend the nature 
of religion. What is so simple and plain that many 
a child comprehends it and reduces it to practice in 
beautiful consistency, is totally misapprehended by 



PERVERTED MENTAL ACTION. 



99 



many, and by some consigned to the region of the 
unknown. Perverted mental action, working con- 
genially with the corrupt heart, makes room for this 
misconception and gives it power. Clearly, men 
entertaining it will be safely included in the Kingdom 
of Evil. Let all minds come into such perverted 
ways of acting, then there is no room among men 
for the Kingdom of Christ, and the Kingdom of Evil 
will reach highest success. 



CHAPTER X. 



MISCONCEIVED UNNATURALNESS OF RELIGION. 

IHE Kingdom of Evil finds an element of success 



JL in the misconceived unnaturalness of religion. 
It involves the question : What is the true measure 
of man ? Some conceive man to be ruled by selfish- 
ness, controlled by personal ambition, frenzied by 
passion, full of abominable lusts and appetites. If 
this be the just measure of man, — this, and nothing 
more, — then nothing could be more unnatural to him 
than religion. It is irreconcilably and eternally at 
war with man as thus described. If it gains any as- 
cendency over him, it is to the extirpation or control 
of every passion and lust. Not strange, therefore, 
that some look upon religion as a system of unnatu- 
ral constraint, consented to, if at all, only from fear 
of worse disaster in the coming hereafter. 

Many thus misestimate religion. Accepted as a 
law of life, it would lay a check, if not a positive pro- 
hibition, upon the chosen delights of their life. The 
free, easy, and congenial ways in which life runs 
would be broken up, habits revolutionized, affinities 
destroyed, and the entire drift of life set into a chan- 
nel which, so far as known, looks difficult and unin- 




UNNATUR ALNESS OF RELIGION. 



101 



vitiug. What conscience has already said to them 
has been in no pleasant tone, nor upon any welcome 
theme. Even the voice of reason has been full of 
rebuke. And the word of God, whenever consulted, 
has been replete with admonitions full of disturb- 
ances. Now, to commit self to reason, conscience, and 
the word of God as the chief advisers and authorita- 
tive directors of life, has no one element of attraction. 

They are confirmed in this by the testimony of 
Christians. True, these Christians sometimes speak 
of joyful hopes, evidently based upon a superstition 
as to what the future contains. What they say of 
present joys and the conscious experience of blessed- 
ness, comes evidently from a self- wrought fanaticism. 
But these are not the burden of their utterances. 
They tell of fears, conflicts, and failures to realize their 
impracticable ideal. With these come self-condem- 
nations and self-torments. The few and faint appro- 
vals of conscience are overborne by its terrible de- 
nouncements. They bewail oftener than bless them- 
selves. By the weight of their testimony, they have 
chosen a comfortless lot, where fear and anguish are 
their nearest neighbors. 

Men holding this view of life and Christian expe- 
rience, confirm themselves in their convictions by 
that expression of the apostle, "If in this life only we 
have hope, we are of all men most miserable." From 
which they infer that if there is any good in religion, 
it is not to be found in this life, but in some future 
state, concerning which they ask, Who knows ? 

Even if a little out of the order of thought, it will 
help on the discussion to inquire how Paul came to 



102 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



say this. From other parts of his writings we know 
how he esteemed the wealth, pleasures, and honors of 
this world, He counted them as nothing for the joy 
and hope he had in Christ. He had tried the world 
under the most favorable circumstances admissible in 
his age. More than most men he was able to grasp 
its advantages and enjoy its benefits. 

In the light which revealed Christ to him, an ex- 
posure was made of the littleness and meagreness of 
this world as a portion to satisfy man. By that light 
there was revealed to him the profound depths of the 
human heart. He found that the mind had a grasp, 
a breadth and height of reach, a capacity which noth- 
ing but the Infinite and Eternal could fill. He found 
within himself not only a use for all the contents of 
the universe, but a need for all there is in God him- 
self. Convinced of the inadequacy of what the world 
has to ofier as a satisfying portion of the soul ; hav- 
ing found in the hopes and foretastes of gospel bles- 
sedness that which could excite every power of the 
mind to highest activity ; that which could stir the 
emotions to their profoundest depths ; that which 
opens to thought loftiest range and widest sweep ; 
that which could call out the soul's utmost love and 
devotions ; that which enabled the soul to find its true 
place and normal condition in the surrounding uni- 
verse and under the moral government of God ; its 
faith taking hold on God and securing all the practi- 
cal benefits of infinite wisdom and infinite jDower : 
the troubled conscience finding in an atoning Sav- 
iour such perfect peace, "that the thunders of the 
law become an anthem of righteousness " ; the divine 



UN NATURALNESS OF RELIGION. 



103 



love iu Christ meeting the soul in terms of reciprocal 
appeal and response, and hope taking possession of 
all the contents of a good and grand immortality; 
then to have all this stricken from the heart, as death 
of hope in Christ involved, this would leave the 
apostle consciously far more miserable, pitiable, than 
the sinner who had never discovered the profound 
wants of his soul, nor the emptiness of the world as 
the soul's portion. 

It was not because his heroism had been tried by 
persecution ; not because he held himself to any 
drudgery that was not self-ennobling, nor because 
he had so long foregone earthly pleasures ; but be- 
cause in the rays which shone around him from the 
throne of God he had seen the depths of his own 
heart, taken measures of his capacities, and had come 
upon an intelligent conviction that this world, with 
all its varied contents, could not fill the depths of his 
heart nor occupy the capacities of his soul. 

In that light, which a hope in Christ shed around 
him, Paul discovered longings, felt stirred within 
him a consciousness of power, had excited an activ- 
ity of thought ; more than all, felt a capacity of love 
to be given and received ; all of which demanded the 
infinite and eternal, and demanded right adjustment 
with God through an atoning Saviour. Shut away 
from all this, as the loss of hope in Christ involved, 
no more could he come back and build a resting- 
place for his soul with the perishable materials of this 
world, " make him gods and find them clay " ; no 
longer in hearts already stricken with death, and, 
worse still, corrupted by sin, could he find objects to 



104 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



call out his love, nor fountains of that return love, 
which, as a bath of refreshment, he needed to have 
around him forever. 

There is another measure of man than that which 
they apply who pronounce religion an unnatural and 
cheerless constraint ; a measure which recognizes him 
as endowed with reason, conscience, and immortality ; 
a spirit capable of divine inspirations, a subject of 
God's moral government, having a reach of mind and 
depth of heart which have use for all contents of the 
universe and all perfections of God. Till thus seen, 
man is not seen aright. His reason must find a God, — 
a God of such perfections as are revealed in the Scrip- 
tures. Beyond all second causes he finds room for a 
Great First Cause, a Self-existent and Eternal Jeho- 
vah. The more man fathoms the depths of his own 
heart, the loftier the height and the wider the sweep 
of his thoughts, whether among the materialities of 
nature, the records of history, or the depths of phi- 
losophy ; the more comprehensively he comes to 
understand society, government, humanity, and the 
possibilities of the future, so much the more press- 
ingly does he feel the need of just such a God as 
rules on high, and who ought to be, if he is not ; for 
who else can give any hopeful outcome to what is 
o^oin«: on? 

Equally, there should be a law of infinite right- 
eousness ; nothing less than the perfect character 
which meets that law can satisfy man's reason. He 
may fail, all around him and through all ranges of 
history he may find only failures to reach the charac- 
ter demanded by that law ; still, with nothing less 



UXXATUF.AL^'ESS OF RELIGIOX. 



105 



can reason be content. Even despair of success can- 
not justify him in abandoning the attempt. Such is 
his present condition, and reason affirms that so it 
will be eternally. 

Eeason may never have anticipated the Plan of 
Rescue revealed in the gospel ; hut it is found fitted 
to all deepest wants in man, to highest capacity and 
intensest longings. Only by denial of his relations 
and surroLindings, by ignorance of his wants and 
capacities, can the gospel seem abnormal. It is in 
felt adjustment to man's conscious wants and antici- 
pated necessities. 

So far from being unnatural, artificial, and forced, 
the Christian life is normal, fitted to man's powers, 
adjusted to his capacities, and consonant with his 
highest longings. On the other hand, if there is a 
constricted, unnatural, shallow, delusive, and unmanly 
life to be found in the world, — a life that leaves man's 
grandest powers undeveloped, his deepest emotions 
unregulated, his strongest impulses ungoverned, his 
truest humanity uneducated, and his noblest energies 
slumbering in him, — that life must be found within 
the Kingdom of Evil. In all that is said and done 
to entice men from that Kingdom, it is not to bring 
them under unnatural constraint, but to emancipate 
them into their truest freedom; not to starve mind 
or heart, but to feed them with angels' food ; not to 
sadden a life, now sorrowful enough, but to give true 
and eternal joy. The end, and not less the means, 
can be justiiied. This is not theory ; it has historical 
verification. Human experience thus far has not 
been for nothing. Some things have been settled, 

8 



106 



SUCCi:SS OF EVIL. 



and finioiig tliein this, — that the gospel supply fnllv 
meets the human want. 

Iso human mind can comprehend the varieties of 
the human condition. AYe have general terms, which 
mark certain obvious and salient points of that con- 
dition ; rich or poor, virtuous or vicious, honorable 
or degraded, civilized or savage; these are general 
terms, without precision and definiteness. Under 
each is a wide diversity. We sort men in lots, and 
have terms of description only for the class. We fail 
to get the grand product of variety, unless we take 
each individual as a factor, making account of natural 
endowments, opportunities, culture, incentives, tem- 
perament, experience, and resultant character. 

Yet to all this variety the gospel addresses itself, 
comes to each as just the help needed. No man has 
risen so high, sunk so low, or wandered so far out of 
the ordinary human condition, as to be beyond the 
reach of the gospel. JN'o man has filled his heart so fall 
with the schemes and success of ambition, with the 
toils and rewards of industry, with the longings and 
requitements of human love, with study and mastery 
of science, as not to have in his heart ample room for 
the gospel. Men have been endowed with the richest 
gifts of genius and talent ; have had all culture of 
science and art ; been helped by health, wealth, s^nd 
favoring providences ; have started from levels in 
society whence they could quickest reach the heights 
of success ; yet, as they have taken measure of their 
capacities, heard all voices of want crying out of 
their hearts, and looked into the possibilities of the 
future, they have confessed, theie was room in 



UXyATUBALNESS OF EELIGIOX. 



107 



their hearts for the gospel's work and the gospel's 
reward. 

So, at the other extreme of the human coDditioii. 
If he be a man of failure and untoward fate, when 
the deranged machinery of life has brought its heav- 
iest crush upon him, not so has his heart been filled 
with grief and gloom, care and concern, distrust and 
despair, fears and forebodings, that no room could 
be found for the gospel. Take the most pitable 
wretch, found in lowest depths because fallen from 
high position. Beginning to fall, let foe and former 
friend help him downward. Let treachery betray 
him, poverty starve him, and false friends turn him 
adrift homeless. Let every calamity stick fast to 
him, every misfortune hedge him about, and every 
disaster bring its crush upon him, till this modern 
Job shall curse the day of his birth. More yet, by 
far, take away from him the heroism of integrit}^, the 
inspiration of uprightness ; weaken him with the con- 
sciousness of moral degradation ; crush him with a 
sense of guilt : let every horrid fear beleaguer him, 
remorse sting him, and coming retribution appall him. 

Such men there have been. Can the gospel do 
anything fur them ? Lito such hearts the gospel has 
come, removing the sense of guilt by the assurance 
of pardon, dissipating the fear of retribution, the 
love of Christ fillino- the heart as no human love ever 
did. Though such a man could not recover the good 
repute he has lost, the friends he has alienated, the 
possessions he has squandered, and the health he 
has sacrificed, — yet, in the depth of his poverty, in 
outcast loneliness, amid tortures of disease, yea, in 



108 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



prison and chains wherewith violations of civil law 
have bound him, he has sung a sweeter song, been 
filled with truer and richer joy, than has the world's 
favorite. 

Between these extremes, among all classes, from 
the man of highest success to the man of remediless 
failure, all who have come to any just apprehension 
of their powers and capacities and wants, have found 
need and room in their hearts for the work and re- 
w^ard of the gospel, as much as any of highest success 
or worst failure ; for the need of religion grows not 
out of the accidental conditions, but out of the essen- 
tial nature of humanity. 

The Creator of man is the Author of the gospel ; 
and he has instituted between them an adaptation 
both comprehensive and minute. In man there is no 
longing, hope, weakness, or fear, which the gospel 
does not meet ; no power, of which it does not make 
the most. In the gospel there is nothing wantiug, 
nothing superfluous ; for it there is no substitute. 
It deals with man, not simply as an individual, but 
puts him into society ; permits all affinities of world- 
ly interest and social endearments to cluster around 
him ; and in these gives such wisdom to his intelli- 
gence, such restraint to his passions, such incentive 
to his powers, and such tone to his spirit, as to make 
possible to him the highest good. 

History gives warrant for what is here affirmed. 
Through the ages and to-day, the gospel is doing 
just the work humanity needs. Xone are beyond its 
reach ; none exempt from its claims ; none indepen- 
dent of its help. In illustration : From humblest 



UNNATURALNESS OF RELIGION. 



109 



condition of life, by rapid yet legitimate steps, aided 
by the genius of American civilization, a man went 
upward, till he stood at the head of this nation. By 
the helm he stood in the stormiest passage of our his- 
tory. Never were hands so full, mind so occupied, 
or heart so burdened with weighty cares. 'T would 
seem that his occupation was use enough for one soul. 
Every interest of the nation, in urgent and tumultu- 
ous throng, like centring waves on ocean rock, beat 
about that Presidential Mansion. Swift couriers came 
and went ; messages forth and back on wings of light 
ning. The decision of battle, the issue of campaigns, 
the fate of millions, the solidarity of the Union, and 
even the life of the nation were involved. 

Was not that use enough for one man ? Could not 
such occupation push aside God's claims on his per- 
sonal love and obedience for four years ? Could not 
such absorbing interests and weighty cares so fill 
every capacity of thought and feeling, as to make 
that heart forget its need of forgiveness through the 
blood of Christ, its use for a hope of heaven ? No, 
no. There was room in that occupied heart for the 
gospel, need for all its work, want for all its reward. 
Awa}^ from the perplexities of state, away from the 
anxieties of war, the hand of a sick and dying boy 
led that father into another world of thought and 
feeling, — not a new world to that habitual attendant 
at the sanctuary, that diligent student of the word of 
God, that man of deep and earnest thought. There 
he gave and took what bound his heart to Christ in 
the exalted hope of a Christian man. 

To-day, in meanest abodes, where poverty yields 



110 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



its full fruitage of wretchedness, where starvation 
makes cheeks pale and lips thin, where the chill of 
night keeps nigh at hand the coldness of death ; in 
homes where worldly cheer has not smiled for many 
a month, where disease has weakened the arm that 
brought them bread ; in homes through whose win- 
dow death and famine look in fmiiliarly, disputing 
which shall enter first, — in such homes may be found 
Christian patience, a joy and cheer that hushes all 
repiniugs ; may be heard voices of prayer that utter 
many a sentence of praise ; may be found hearts that 
throb quick in responsive love to Him whose death 
opened the way to the many mansions he now makes 
ready ; may be seen eyes made brilliant in hope of 
the glory to be revealed, — in such homes may be 
found a dying mother, leaving little ones, whose cry 
of sorrow hunger has made weak, giving them to 
her trusted husband, and all to her trusted Father 
in heaven, longing to stay and comfort her husband 
and train her children for heaven, yet longing to 
depart, counting life's bitter experience a joy, since it 
has brought her to a death-bed where angels wait, 
and made her home of wretchedness an entrance-room 
to the heavenly mansions. 

The light of day that exQrcises the dream of 
darkness," the protection that gives peace by day and 
safety by night, the cool water that quenches the 
thirst of fevered lips, the loaf that staves off starva- 
tion, the store laid up that hushes all fear of want, 
the culture that lets into all God's world of truth 
and beauty, human love given so lavishly and its 
sweet requitement, — room and want for these, not 



UXXATUIiALXESS OF RELIGION. 



Ill 



more than for rectified standing under God's moral 
government, hope of forgiveness through Christ, 
peace of conscience, the wit}' of believing, and an 
intelligent hope of heaven.- 

There is nothing superfluous in God's universe. 
Every soul can use its contents, needs its range, to 
live in its eternal light of truth and beauty. There 
is capacity in every soul for all Christian graces, an 
answering thrill for every fear, hope and joy that 
centres in the Infinite and Eternal, room for all con- 
tents of the gospel, need of its comfort in the years of 
life and in the hour of dying, need of its guidance 
through life and amid the possibilities of the future, 
need that it hush the distractions and quell the dis- 
turbances of sin by reconciliation with God through 
Christ, need of the personal sympathy and love of 
Jesus. In no soul has this need been more pressing 
than it can be in any, than it must be, if life end not 
in faikire. If there is anything fitting, natural, and 
iKjrnial to the soul, it is the religion of Jesus Christ. 

Yet to many — O, how many! — a Christian life 
seems a forced state, unnatural to all the genuine play 
of the soul's powers, a constraint upon its readiest 
action, its deepest emotions, and highest aspirations. 
Still, if, upon advisement of Him who has control of 
affairs in this universe, religion is seen to be neces- 
sary to eternal welfiire, it can be maintained, borne, 
endured, met like hard-earned and ill-spared pay- 
ments on an insurance policy, — yet it is to them an 
artificial and forced constraint. When proposition 
for entrance upon a religious life comes squarely be- 
fore them, they look forward to it as painfully unnat- 



112 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



ural, to whose duties they could adjust their lives 
ouly with manifest awkwardness, under whose in- 
fluence life would have a frigid mechanical aspect, 
not merely dull and dreary in negations, but posi- 
tively irksome w^ith its constraints. This conceived 
unnaturalness of religion, so largely prevalent, is, 
beyond debate or need of showing, a fruitful element 
of success in the Kingdom of Evil. 



CHAPTEK "XI. 



DENIAL OF ETERNAL EETRIBUTION. 

THEKE is a sense of justice in the human mind. 
It may be said to be constitutional, innate. This 
has been denied. As well deny that speech is innate 
because the child cannot talk. That may properly be 
said to be innate or constitutional, whose rudimentary 
germs are found in us, sure to come to maturity and 
power with normal growth. Early and always justice 
shows itself, when the mind comes to mature action, 
and even before. Let wrong be done to a child, and 
in the resent awakened an impulsive and crude sense 
of justice is expressed. As the mind approaches 
maturity, the sense of vindictive resent abates, tur- 
bidness subsides, and the sense of justice gets cleared 
of all base and foreio-n in2:redi«nts. 

That in this sense of justice there is not necessarily 
any feeling of resent, is evident from the fact, that 
its voice is equally imperative when wrong is done 
to others. We see advantage taken of the weak and 
helpless by the strong, of the innocent by the artful, 
and we instinctively demand justice between the par- 
ties ; vindication and, if possible, restitution for the 
wronged, punishment for the aggressor, even though 



114 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



we have no personal interest in the transaction. We 
demand justice, not from fear that if wrongs go un- 
redressed there will come to be a corrupt state of 
society, or that oppressors will become bold and over- 
bearing, and we suffer in consequence ; but we demand 
justice to satisfy our present and innate sense of what 
is right. 

This sense of justice enters into the structure of 
society, just as the law of gravity enters into our way 
of haiidlino: material thino-s. If a building;, con- 
structed without reference to the law of gravity, 
would come to ruin, not less would society without 
the law of justice. Yet it is something more than a 
wise prudence in guarding against damage in the 
social and civil relations of life. Without reference 
to advantage or pleasure, every rightly acting mind 
demands that justice be done. Even the heathen 
could Sciy, " Fiat justitia , mat coelum'^ Even against 
self comes this pronouncement of justice. Having 
done wrong, it may be to our advantage in manifold 
ways for justice not to interfere ; it may promote our 
immediate pleasure for justice not to hurl retribution 
upon us ; yet we feel we deserve it. And till justice 
has adjusted the wrong, we feel that the matter is not 
finished. Men have even sought courts of justice 
and charged themselves with capital crimes, rather 
than bear about the guilt of unavenged wrong. 

If, however, the fitting penalty is fearful in degree, 
as the death penalty for murder, men whose huuiani- 
tarianism is in the ascendant and whose sense of 
justice is dull, may recoil from inflicting it. Others, 
of tenderer sympathy and duller sense of justice, may 



DENIAL OF ETERNAL RETRIBUTION. 



115 



refuse to senteucc the murderer to imprisoDmeut for 
life. Men, iu other respects whole, are incomplete 
in their sense of justice, as others are in their sense 
of the merciful or the beautiful. Such incomplete, 
abnormal men abound in society ; indeed, the diffi- 
culty is to find one not marred by some defect. If 
a man disposed to do justice finds himself to re- 
coil from inflicting the penalty, he may go back to 
reconsider the crime, to take measure of its magni- 
tude, not to inflame his vengeful feeling, but that his 
sence of justice m^j come to healthful tone. This 
done, the penalty affirmed, as befitting the crime, can 
be inflicted with a steady hand. If there be failure 
here, it is because compassion has weakened the sense 
of justice. 

Justice is a necessary element in all forms of so- 
ciety. Take society in its simplest conceivable form, 
two men living on an otherwise uninhabited island ; 
justice would need to be there with her adjustment 
of mutual and individual rights. She demands room 
iu the family, the church, iu voluntary associations, 
in incorporated communities, in the state and nation. 
The larger the social combination, the more intricate 
its relations and the "greater the maofuitude of its in- 
terests ; so much more the need that justice have the 
handling of its afi'airs. 

In the moral government of God it is readily seen 
that justice and righteousness must be the founda- 
tion of his throne. AYhat organization so vast, what 
relations so intricate, what interests of such magni- 
tude ! Considering either the perfections of God, or 
the necessities of his government, we expect here to 



116 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



find justice perfect in degree and unfailing in its cer- 
tainties. While history gives us only hints of this 
fa^", revelation sets it before us with distinct empha- 
sis. If shown that it finds not simply here and there 
an illustration, but that it runs through every intri- 
cacy of relation, it wakes no surprise. Indeed, such 
pervasion of justice meets the demands of reason. 
We even dare to say that God's moral government 
has no right to be, unless founded on justice. In- 
finite and eternal wrong has no right to rule. No 
emphasis of denial can abate our conviction, that 
justice, infinite and eternal, must and does have room 
and sway in the moral government of God. 

In that government, who but its Divine Ruler 
can manage its administration? What eye, save the 
omniscient one, can see the consequences of conduct, 
or trace where wrong will end? None but God can 
fix the penalt}^ befitting wrong. He alone can meas- 
ure its guilt, comprehend its principles and spirit, 
its exhibitions and eflects. Into the spirit of the 
sinner God looks, finding what would overturn his 
throne of righteousness, but for the restraint of im- 
potence. In the consequences of sin God sees ruined 
souls, yea, a ruined universe, but for the restraints 
under which he holds sin. Whether it approve itself 
to our short-sighted wisdom or not, God has fixed 
the penalty of sin. If it approve itself to our wis- 
dom, well for us ; but if not, it should awaken no 
surprise ; for we have not come up to his point of 
vision, nor gained his sweep of thought. He has 
done it without our help and will execute it without 
our hinderance. Here we find the stabilities of justice. 



DENIAL OF ETEliNAL RETRIBUTION. 



117 



lu the administration of his government, progress 
must be made, results must be reached ; to finite 
minds contingencies must give place to certainties. 
So God has made the doings of this life to issue in 
character. How long the series in which such doings 
and results are only single steps of advance, no finite 
mind can tell. To something greater, the progress 
we see may be only what the revolution of the earth 
on its axis is to its sweep around the sun. But be it 
only a step in an infinite series, or the final product of 
all history, character is formed by the doings of this 
life. So much we can see, even if only the segment 
of a circle which we cannot trace. 

With consent or without, every man must put him- 
self into drill. Some fashion or fixture he gives to 
moral character by every act. And act he must. In 
this rush of life he cannot stand in immovable stolid- 
ity. The constant appeals made to him he cannot meet 
with an indifferent non-committalism. Wants will 
draw, necessities impel, whatever paint they involve."^ 

And this is what we see men busiest at. Alone or 
in company, in sickness or health, at home or abroad, 
in success or failure, the one thing men are busiest 
at, what they never cease from, during all the hours 
of conscious existence, is drill in character. By 
action and non-action, in consent and refusal, in what 
they receive and reject, by use and misuse, they are 
giving form or confirmation, tone and touch, to moral 
character. It may be without plan or purpose, it may 
be against fixed determination ; still they must cease- 
lessly work at this stint. What is prosecuted so untir- 
ingly will at length bring some definite result, it may 



118 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



be an occasion of joy or sorrow. It will be sometbin2f 
positive. Character comes in such incomprehensible 
variety, that we may not always be able to detect its 
definitive traits, — may not have discernment to sort 
each with its kind ; but the all-seeing eye of God will 
make no mistake in the final assortment. Indeed, each 
may affiliate with his own as by instinct. Onl}^ with 
his ow^n sort will the righteous have an}^ fellowship. 
Only with the reprobate will the finally impenitent 
seek companionship. Fearful as such a doom may 
be, still less will they be attracted to the holy. Even 
in this life they give distinct intimation of preference 
for anything than fellowship with the godliest. 

To the righteous and sinful character God has 
affixed consequences that are eternal. The biblical 
teaching on this we give only in summary. To each 
he has assigned a condition whose duration is ex- 
pressed in the same terms. Hell is as permanently 
built as heaven. A condition of wretchedness must 
expect to continue as long as the sinful state out of 
which it grows. Men are seen to be sinners till death 
takes them in hand. The presumption is, as divine 
revelation teaches, that moral character continues in 
the next life, as formed here, with the addition of con- 
firmation and progress. All arguments, showing that 
God will in some future stage of history rid the uni- 
verse of sin because of its oppugnance to his charac- 
ter, are as pertinent to show that he would never 
have permitted its introduction. For this we know 
not his reasons, and so cannot affirm that those reasons 
will abate. The reasons for its permitted introduc- 
tion may be equal Ij^ reasons for its iDermitted con- 
tinuance. 



DENIAL OF ETERNAL RETRIBUTION. 119 

If men will sin, tliey consent to its preadvised 
results. These may be very inadequately appre- 
hended. They are as much beyond the reach of hu- 
man comprehension as is sin, their cause. Just such 
infinite quantities are in man's handling, and he hesi- 
tates not at the responsibility. He lays his hand on 
the shaping of character and the fashioning of eter- 
nal destiny as carelessly as though it were the amuse- 
ment of an hour ; and ceaselessly is he busy at it. 

When, however, we come to any proximate view 
of the consequences of sin, as seen in its wonted 
results in this life, or as seen by faith in the divine 
declarations as to w^hat is coming hereafter, the mind 
is appalled with their magnitude and terribleness, 
and even seeks to rid itself of the fearful impression 
by denial. Let one go through the wards of a peni- 
tentiary, note carefully the conditions of those incar- 
cerated there, trace them back to former life, see the 
station in society they occupied, their domestic affilia- 
tions, notice what powers of mind are held in re- 
straint, withering in disuse, perhaps becoming palsied 
with idiocy or frenzied with insanity, and. he may 
instinctively say, this is too terrible. Counselled 
simply by sympathy for the imprisoned, if he might, 
he would quickly unbar their prison doors. 

But let him look at the matter on the other side, 
trace out the history of their crimes, burglary, arson, 
robbery, counterfeiting, seduction, murder, not in the 
generality which their names present, but in the partic- 
ulars and aggravations of wrong, injustice, and cruelty 
which each presents ; let him notice that those crimes 
were ^ the unwitting impulse of some heedless mo- 



120 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



ment, not the clibtmction of some quick and sore 
temptation, but the last fatal plunge in some long 
career of unrighteousness and even of lawlessness ; let 
him note the fairness of their trial and the righteous- 
ness of the law under which they were condemned ; 
then will he see how all the joys of life, the securi- 
ties of home, the value of reputation, the pleasures 
of fraternity, the conditions of progress, the possi- 
bilities of high attainment, and the solidarity of so- 
ciety, would be swept away if such laws were not 
enforced, and such crimes were rampant. Taking 
counsel of justice, the completeness of benevolence, 
and not taking counsel merely of sympathy ; rather, 
giving the sympathies their true range, and caring 
wisely for all human interests, and for all law-abid- 
ing citizens, who outside of prisons are pursuing their 
lawful occupations without infringement of others' 
rights ; and he will find abundant reasons why those 
prison doors should remain securely fastened. Hard 
as the lot of its inmates may be, instead of dimin- 
ish hig, he would add to the securities of their prison, 
and, if need be, re-enact the laws that condemned 
them. 

All this is on our level and within reach of our 
comprehension. These crimes against the security 
of property, against the peace of society, the value 
of reputation, and the sanctity of life, we can un- 
derstand. We see how far they would go, what 
damage they would work. We know what is neces- 
sary for their restraint, and feel not only justified, 
but even impelled by all highest considerations, to 
put such crimes under penalties proportioned to the 



DENIAL OF ETERNAL RETRIBUTION. 



121 



magnitude of the interests against wiiicli they make 
war. This is justice, and we cannot consent that it 
should abdicate its rule. 

When now we lift this whole matter up to the level 
of God's moral government, we are compelled to 
confess that it passes beyond the reach of our (iora- 
prehension. How far sin may go, where evil will 
end, we cannot tell. The welfare of the universe is 
as far beyond the reach of our comprehension as its 
magnitude is beyond the power of our measurement. 
We can conceive that all highest interests of the uni- 
verse may rest upon the securitj^ of God's throne ; 
that in the real and seen righteousness of his charac- 
ter is there any stability to the universe or any safety 
to its inhabitants. We see, therefore, that his character 
and government must be in eternal and infinite oppo- 
sition to sin in all its forms, degrees, and manifesta- 
tions. The interests he has in charge require this. 
He is a God of infinite responsibilities. Whatever 
may be necessary for the protection of these interests, 
to keep lawlessness from ascendency, and misrule 
from anarchical devastation, this must be, whatever 
else is, or is not. 

It is not submitted to our approval what penalties 
shall sanction God's law, what eternal conseqQences 
he has attached to sin, or what doom he has assio^ned 
to the finally incorrigible sinner. From what little 
we know of sin, as it shows itself in this life, we are 
justified in the conviction that its consequences 
hereafter will be bitter, wretched, terrible, past all 
comprehension of our thoughts. As we might 
expect, so God's word affirms them to be, summon- 



122 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



iiig iill forms of known suffering to depict their mis- 
ery, milking it yet more terrible by the added an- 
nouncement that it will be eternal. 

There is no truth of God's word, however plain, 
positive, and repeated, which has not met denial. 
Distempered by sin, the mind can meet with denial 
any demonstrated truth of religion or any instinctive 
conviction of moral consciousness. This is the plague 
of siu ; so, when the eternal consequences of sin meet 
denial, that tiuth only fares as other truths of God's 
word have. Unable to comprehend the enormity of 
guilt, to measure the magnitude of sin, to conceive 
the vast and varied interests of God's moral govern- 
ment, such denial of the eternal consequences of sin 
is only what might be expected. And it is made, 
sometimes by peremptory denial of penalties, some- 
times by affirming that the penalty is found in the 
disrepute and disasters immediately consequent. 

There is still another view to be taken. God is 
greater than anything he has done, more than any- 
thing he has made. Even the universe does not 
measure him, nor its interests balance his. Sin is 
against God, wars upon Him, instigates rebellion 
against his government, plots his overthrow, and but 
for the restraint of impotence would realize its ends. 
To take in the measure of sin, then, the mind must 
comprehend what would be done by the realized 
intent of sin, by its reaching the success at which it 
aims ; what God's dethronement and universal anar- 
chy mean. This is beyond the grasp of human 
thought ; equally so is sin. 

If, then, God assigns a penalty to sin that stag- 



DENIAL OF ETERNAL RETRIDUTION. 



123 



gers the faith of unbelieving minds, it should be no 
wonder. They have uo conception of the nmgnitudes 
concerned. Nut always revolted state of heart, often- 
times constricted range of thought, lead to denial of 
the eternal consequences of sin. If men deny the 
plain revealmcnts of God's word, and the deep long- 
ings of their souls, by consenting to annihilation, to 
rid themselves of the conviction that the penalties of 
sin are eternal, it harmonizes with the blindness and 
perversity which sin induces. Yet such denial is 
made, sometimes held and advocated as an article of 
belief. Even a religion is made of it, and a religious 
sect is organized upon that denial as a characteristic 
and central article of belief. That denomination has 
churches, a ministry, and literature. Thej^ make 
themselves known and heard chiefly in denial of the 
eternal penalties of sin. This they do without com- 
prehending the drift of sin, without being able t6i 
take measure of its magnitude, — as no finite mind can, 
— without understanding its intent or estimating its 
enormity. This they do in denial of the perfect justice 
of benevolence and often by minifying sin, as though 
what has flooded the world with woe, and cost God 
the death of his Son, would be a trifle. 

This denial has not always such daring. Often it 
exists only as a vague and unexamined feeling, refus- 
ing to be confronted by reason, to put itself into the 
handling of argument, or to accept with docility the 
teachings of God's word. And yet it has positive- 
ness to mould the convictions and give tone to feel- 
ing. Hereby a man is placed in a very difierent 
attitude towards God, his word, his government, and 



124 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



the future. Ho takes not a meaning from the word 
of God, but imposes one upon it. So let there be a 
tirmiy settled C(mviction, or a vague, yet perve'^sive 
feelisig, that matters will come out right in the end ; 
that when the incitements to sin found in this life 
shall pass, selfishness and sin will somehow die out; 
that God's justice will abdicate its authority and " let 
by-gones be by-gones " ; thereby God, his govern- 
ment, and the future, are made something very differ- 
ent to such a man. 

He is in a false relation to the realities by which 
he is surrounded. He endangers his soul ; not more 
could he endanger his body by denying the fiict of 
gravitation. Realities become unreal to his mind, 
idle fictions are the basis of his calculations, and he 
builds the hope of eternal welfare on a foundation of 
sand. 

Here we come upon another element of success in 
the Kingdom of Evil, — this denial of the eternal con- 
sequences of sin, a denial, either in announced and 
defended convictions, or in vague and unexamined 
feelings, of the eternal penalty which God attaches 
to sin. Let this denial exist in the mind, either as a 
tenet of belief, or as a mere sentiment of the feel- 
ings, and how safely is such a man included in the 
Kingdom of Evil. Other and higher reasons there 
are why men should abandon the Kingdom of Evil 
and enter the Kingdom of Christ ; but so low is the 
level to which most have fallen, that these are neither 
apprehended nor appreciated. The life of sin, which 
comes so handy, gives no token of coming retribu- 
tion, and so m^^s no alarm. In sin he sees no 



DENIAL OF ETERNAL RETRIBUTION. 



125 



danger. His moral energies are in no array against 
it, further than the proprieties of life require. He 
calls himself to no conflict for victory over it. To 
it he sees no penalty affixed, save perhaps the disre- 
pute, damage, and discomforts found in this life, Avhich 
he has already learned to brave and bear. So he 
utters no cry to God for mercy, softens his heart in 
no repentance, feels no need of a redeeming Saviour, 
opens his heart to no regenerating and sanctifying 
spirit. Safely is he in the Kingdom of Evil. 

Put to devising a Kingdom of Evil and ruin, op- 
posed to Clirist's Kingdom of Kighteousness and 
salvation, charged with introducing into it such ele- 
ments as would give it respectable success, this one 
element would be essential, if not sufficient. Fear 
is as legitimate a motive as hope, but let a denial of 
the consequences of sin become universal, and what 
alarm could stir the fears, or what promise excite 
hope ? 

Not only could such a denial be an element of suc- 
cess in the Kingdom of Evil, but such it is in real- 
ity. It is not merely a possibility, but a fact ; and 
the success which it gives to the Kingdom of Evil 
is equally a fact. Of this terrible fact, illustration 
can be found in every community, and in all times 
hitherto. 



CHAPTEE XII. 



DENIAL OF DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 

FLAW in a diamond, or a fleck in an emerald, 



.jlJL abates its value, though such defect might not 
be noticed in coarser stones. The soul is such a 
high and beautiful creation as to be beyond appreci- 
ation of the coarse judgments formed under sin. 
What mars it is counted a trifle, as fitly the mote 
that inflames the eye and destroys the sight. Some 
never found in the soul a capacity for all knowledge, 
a need of faith reaching beyond outmost bounds of 
knowledge ; never found in the soul an appreciation 
of all most beautiful and sublimest things that can 
be ; never found in the soul a use for immortality, 
for all contents of the universe and all perfections of 
God. Such find no capacity in the soul for recip- 
rocal thought and afiection with minds of loftiest 
range, still less of concurrence in thought and emo- 
tion with the Infinite Jehovah. 

Naturally, therefore, they minify sin, and see not 
that it forbids the soul so grand a destiny. When 
the gospel represents the soul as in a lost condition, 
they withhold assent. They deny the need of God's 
interference with a scheme of salvation ; they pass 




DENIAL OF DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 



127 



hy the enriiest endeavors and strenuons conflicts 
necessary to recovery out of the snare of sin. Or if 
shut up to something of this, as the way of reaching 
betterment and success in this life, they deny the 
need of any radical revolution of moral character, 
or of any so intangil)le a thing as divine help ; and 
so utter no cry for it in prayer. They seek better- 
ment — salvation, they would hardly call it — under 
law, but not by grace. 

No such general drift, no such quickened interest 
have thoughtful minds found, as now, in studying 
" the reign of law." Some view of the sphere and 
authority of law, even most superficial students of 
nature find. This is among the first lessons of 
infancy. Fuller instruction comes with all subse- 
quent experience. If any success is reached, man 
is compelled to heed the laws which so irrevocably 
determine his conditions and surroundings. To 
some study and recognition of law he is forced by 
necessities which he cannot escape. He learns, be- 
cause compelled under threat of disaster and failure. 

But more tract ible students are found. Profit 
offers its incentives. There is wealth in these secret 
laws of nature. Mining here pays as well as in 
auriferous mountains. The hidden forces of nature 
can be utilized for betterment of the human condi- 
tion, both to meet grossest and most imperative 
wants, also to beautify and adorn. And wants reach 
as high as this. Not alone in provision store and 
clothing shop are human wants met, but as really in 
stores of art, knowledge, and beauty. So entrance 
is gained into secret cabinets of nature. Wide 



128 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



range is here offered iind accepted. Retort and 
crucible are put to use. Inquiry and experiment 
exhaust their patience, only to rest and try again. 
Earth's secret stores are pryed into, her witnesses put 
to closest cros^-questioning, so as to gain some more 
facile way, quicker result, larger and surer reward. 

But nature has, if fewer, yet more devout stu- 
dents. They search not for proSt, but for truth. 
To them what is true is greatest and richest. Not 
for enlargement and certainty of profit, not for bet- 
terment and beautifying of outward condition, not 
to meet the demand of pride, nor even the cry for 
help. They wait and watch all secret entrances they 
can find into nature's mysteries. They try all her 
locks and bars, and could they find nature oflf her 
guard, they would not hesitate at burglary. If 
nature draws a veil over her distant works, they 
will wait, patiently sitting cut the night ; or go on 
long pilgrimages to better posts of observation. If 
nature is slow in some of her processes, they will 
wait upon her moods, and give her all the time she 
asks. If she is particular about quantities and tem- 
peratures, these shall be graduated to infinitesimal 
measurement. But all her tricks of combination and 
resolution, the way she spins and weaves her threads 
of light, their composition, as they stream from sun 
and more distant star; how she tones her voices, 
utters and echoes her sounds ; how she turns motion 
to heat and back again ; what equivalents she has 
established ; what the multiples of her combinations ; 
indeed, v/hatever is true must be known. Nothing 
so far, so great, so hidden, so microscopic, but it 



DENIAL OF DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 



129 



must submit to the handling of analysis. Hindered 
by ho awe, or more reverent for knowing more, 
these men of science push their researches into 
nature's arcana, and if they can, into whatever mys- 
tery she has, back to protoplasm, and would gladly 
subject life itself to analysis. 

So f\ir as they go, throughout the entii^e range of 
their discovery, they find the reign of law. The 
further they go into nature's temple, they find, not 
deeper gloom^ but more delicate shades of light and 
cross-light, laws more intricate and subtle, yet uni- 
versal, diflferences of result traceable to differences 
of combination, or seeming exceptions, the working 
of a higher law. Law reigns with absolute suprem- 
acy through all the wide range of God's works which 
the senses can explore. Even when the senses call 
to their aid instruments of research, which most in- 
genious and nicest art can furnish, so as to take up 
smallest atoms, or subject to criticism objects hidden 
away in stelhir regions, the senses find the w^orlds 
of materiality under law. 

What expectation does this create, when we come 
to that higher realm of God's works w^here thought, 
conscience, and moral affections have their action? 
Here also we look for law, and here we find it en- 
throned in power. As, in the material worlds we 
found not the principles of hydrostatics governing 
the motion of light, nor the laws of chemical combi- 
nation ruling the reverberations of sound ; but every- 
thing under the sway of laws adapted to its nature : 
so in God's higher realm of mind and soul we expect 
to find laws fitted for government in moral action. 



130 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



Thought has its laws not less than sound ; conscience 
not less than light ; moral affections not less than 
chemical combinations. Gravity holds the worlds 
together with a pressure not more constant than that 
which moral obligation brings upon souls. 

Only under law can life have any meaning, the 
soul an intelligent history ; only under law can con- 
duct have signilicance, or character take shape ; only 
under law can aims be prosecuted, purposes be real- 
ized, or ends reached. In the moral department of 
God's works, law is not less necessary, nor less im- 
perative in its authority, if things that are find any 
worthy use or even justification. 

In the realm of materiality, the reign of law, hold- 
ing the order of nature to its wonted course, realizes 
only an endless scries of reproductions, mere tread- 
wheel motion. The forces of nature keep their own 
level, can rise no higher. Outside of this ceaseless 
round the laws of the material world contemplate no 
advance and effect no progress. They act as well as 
they ever have, do as well as they ever can. They 
offer us the same help as they did to nations of 
remotest antiquity, and vv^ill offer no more to most dis- 
tant generations of the future. In this no consum- 
mation is reached, no purpose served, except con- 
tinuance and multiplication, which gives existence no 
justification. The mind demands something more, 
if its capacities are ever met. Only in the unrest of 
progress can the mind find rest. 

History responds to this demand, and affirms a 
progress. In the arts, in government, in civilization, 
and in all institutions of society, which are facts as 



DENIAL OF DIVIXE FOItGIVENESS. 



131 



stubborn as nature can produce, progress is seen. 
History testifies to tiiis advancement on ever}' page of 
her record ; and did not tiiis progress show itself reach- 
ing into the future with more comprehensive plans, 
the highest incentives to action would be wanting. 

Upon historical warrant, from the nature of mind, 
and to meet the demands of humanity, we look 
for laws in the moral department of God's works, 
adapted to the natures they are to handle. These 
are beings unsatisfied without progress and endowed 
with the power of non-consent, a power found in no 
range below man. With this non-consent put into 
execution, the conditions of life are changed. Laws 
there still are, even more than before ; now, not only 
a law of risfhteousness and life, but also a law of sin 
and death ; and given a place, accepted, not less 
surely will the law of sin and death work out its 
results, than would the law of righteousness and life 
had it remained in sole authority. Enthroned in 
power, consented to, there is a fearful certainty in 
the law of sin and death. 

The laws of the material world can be observed, 
thus keeping ourselves within the lines of safety and 
welfare, or they can be braved, and we rush into 
various perils. So of the laws ordained for the gov- 
ernment of our moral nature. The possibility of 
violating them has become a terrible fact. Every 
intelligent, self-conscious being of our race has vio- 
lated the laws of God's moral government. The only 
exception the world has known bespeaks itself Divine. 

All laws, ruling among the materialities of nature, 
are found invariable in their action. They insist 



132 



success OF EVIL. 



upon bringing in their consequences. These may be 
trifling or terrible, yet they are not to be overlooked, 
— none so trifling as to be neglected ; none so 
terrible as on that account to fail of infliction. 
On the higher level of moral action, does not law 
insist with equal pertinacity upon all its conse- 
quences? If a wounded arm give pain, will not a 
wounded conscience? Deranijed secretions brins: 
disease ; will not perverted afi"ections mar the health 
of the soul ? If its sure working and inevitable con- 
sequences indicate the value of the law and the worth 
of the interests it defends, we may look for certainty 
in the action of moral as of natural law. 

Diseased action in the body brings sufiering, and 
that sufl'ering is chronic if its cause be chronic. The 
painful, labored gasping for breath does not restore 
the congested lungs to normal action. Pain does 
not mend the fractured bone. So, while passion 
rules, while the mind grovels in animalism, and sel- 
fishness perverts the afl*ections, the suflferings that 
come in consequence will not neutralize and correct 
the perverted action of the moral powers. So long 
sin, so long sufl'ering. 

To what, then, are we shut up? Under the law 
of sin and death we clearly are by nature. Is there 
possible to us only such a destiny as sin will bring? 
Must violated law rule our future with its terrible 
certainties ? To this some consent, reconciling them- 
selves to it by minifying the consequences of sin. 
What cannot be endured they hope will be abated 
by the Divine Mercifulness. They hold it to be even 
a matter of honesty with God, that he should bring 



DENIAL OF DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 



133 



on every sinner the exact consequences of violating 
the law. This is only another illustration, to their 
minds, of the imperative reign of law ; and it is to 
them a matter beyond dispute, that whatever con- 
sequences law assigns must come. Their deliverance 
from the consequences of sin is simply an endurance 
of them. Into the iron hand of such a hard necessity 
they give themselves. They are made content with 
this prospect, only because they see no other results 
of sin than the immediate damage and disrepute it 
works. Sin has its immediate inconveniences. Angry 
emotions disturb the peace of mind. Resents enter- 
tained embitter the feelings and give a disagreeable 
fit of moroseness. All such violations of moral law, 
even if confined to the heart, inflict pain and do a 
worse damage by blunting the sensibilities. Wrong 
once done, remorse must be felt, till conscience is 
deadened; and this, not because we are fools, but 
because we are men. And these evil consequences 
come with the certainty on which law always insists. 

Then, if utterance be given to hate, and curses be 
profanely invoked, the disrepute of it brings a recoil 
of shame, and bitter self-chiding does he get for 
having made a fool of himself ; and these he bears as 
the penalty of his wrong. His abated self-respect, 
and the consciousness of his disrepute in the esteem 
of others, are stings that remind him of his violations 
of law. If his hate has gone forth in the infliction 
of wrong, then retaliation smites back, or the wrong 
is avenged in the courts, and smarting under the 
retaliative blow , mulct by the court, or sent to prison, 
he meets a penalty which he counts the exact meas- 



134 



SUCCESS OF KYIL. 



ure of his s^uilt. If pride has swelled to ridiculous 
proportions, or his ambition has overleaped itself, po 
that he is made a laughing-stock, in this chagrin he 
suffers, perhaps keenly, and counts that the penalty. 
If covetousness has got the mastery of him, enticing 
him to expose property to dangerous risk for the 
chance of larger or quicker gains, and what he calls 
luck be against him, the loss he meets he ma}^ take 
as the penalty of his covetousness, — more likely, 
only as a rebuke of his folly in incurring risks. 

When a man has made himself a slave of avarice, 
breaking down his health by hard work, and has at 
lifty years of age undermined a constitution that 
should have kept him hale twenty years longer ; when 
miregulated appetite and injudicious feeding, accom- 
panied either with sloth on the one hand, or over- 
taxed energy on the other, have brought ujDon him 
the dyspeptic torments of a guilty stomach ; or, when 
riotous living and intemperance have thrown him 
into an earthly hell delirium tremens, — in all such 
cases the sufferers find the sure operation of law, and 
probably count their sufferings the adequate penalt}^ 
of their sin. Counting these physical, personal, 
social, and temporary consequences of sin its fit pen- 
alty, finding in sin no guilt but what can thus be 
measured, and regarding these, by the imperative 
reign of law, unavoidable, their philosophy shuts 
them up to a consenting endurance of consequences, 
wdiich they regard adequate penalties. Thus the 
matter is rectified. By suffering they count them- 
selves to have atoned for their guilt. The affair is 
adjusted, and they stand on the ground of recovered 



DEXIAL OF DIVIXE FORGIVEXESS. 



135 



rigliteonsncss. They feel no need of u gospel, no 
nec-cl of an iitonnig Saviour ; sec no room for pardon. 
Indeed, they hold that even-handed jnstice, perpen- 
dicular honesty, forbids pardon, and insists upon the 
penalty, which the unobstructed reign of Xiwv brings. 

Some have thought this out as their theology, oth- 
ers hold it vaguely. Yet it has taken deep hold of 
their feelings. They are governed by it, are shut 
away from the gospel by it, giving no earnest heed 
to what is revealed to them as a way of salvation. 
That great central fact in history, the Incarnation of 
Christ and the Redemption he wrought out, is noth- 
ing to them. They find no room for it in their hearts. 
They make no confession of sin, offer no plea for 
pardon, utter no cry for help, and gird themselves to 
no struggle for deliverance from the power of sin. 
jr)i^re is an element of success in the Kingdom of 
Evil. 

There are immediate and unavoidable consequences 
of sin. They are not its penalty, do not measure 
its guilt. When such consequences have been en- 
dured, whether they pass with the hour that chroni- 
cled the sin, or ran on through all future years of 
life, — these results, passing, leave not the soul in 
moral standing and quality such as before. The man 
thoroughly cured of delirium tremens, in his bodily 
state, in his tastes, appetites, habits, associates, esti- 
mates, in any way by which his quality can be tested 
and measured, is a very different sort from the man 
who never made any approach to that terrible abyss. 
The endured consequences, penalty as he counts it, 
and what he calls his recovered righteousness, place 



13G 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



hi in not buck at his first starting-point ; that he can 
never j-each again till history shall undo her record. 

Sin is not only subjective but objective. If wrong 
be done, the aggressor arrested, condemned in court, 
and sent to prison, he may bear the rude penalty 
which civil law attaches to his crime ; but therein he 
bears not the penalty of his sin, nor makes adjust- 
ment of matters back into the order which his sin 
disrupted. The house he burned, the men he crip- 
pled, the virtue he sacrificed, the prosperity he 
ruined, the life he took, are not restored, even if he 
abides in the prison till the grave be ready for him. 
Man can do w^rono:s which he can never rifi'ht. The 
adjustment he can make and his recovered righteous- 
ness, — the one is as unreal as the other. 

The temporal consequences of sin are not its pen- 
alty, because of disproportion. Judged by its tem- 
poral consequences, a sin often costs less than a 
blunder. A mistake, where the parties supposed 
they exercised due care, brings two railroad trains 
into collision ; property is w^recked, men crippled 
for life, others hurried out of the world, leaving 
wives widows and children fatherless. How costly 
a blunder can be ! Wearied with long watching at 
the bedside, the mind, under some paralysis of fear, 
or stupor of drowsiness, tries to rally its attention to 
the care and responsibility of giving medicine. He 
thinks he has roused himself to needful care, but 
memory or attention fails, he gives the wrong medi- 
cine, which makes sure the advent of death. It was 
only a mistake ; but how much more than some sins, 
in immediate disaster, a blunder costs. If measured 



DENIAL OF DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 



137 



hy temporal consequences, how much more are some 
mistakes than some sins ; how much more they mar 
the peace, order, and welfare of life ; how much 
more fearful the anguish, more terril:>le the suffering 
they bring upon a community, than do some sins. 
And yet blunders, mistakes, do not ruin souls, even 
if they destroy life. Only sin ruins souls. 

If such be sin, if moral law reigns as imperatively 
as the laws governing matter, and if consequences 
come as surely in the range of moral government as 
on the level of material forces ; if the penal y of sin 
is in proportion to its enormity, as both reason and 
revelation affirm ; if the guilt of sin is to Unci meas- 
ure in the penalty, and so transcends all that can be 
contained in this life ; if the penalty, even when its 
duration occupies eternity, works no adjustment of 
the wrong the soul has done, and so brings not the 
soul back to any recovered righteousness, then how 
terrible the condition of any sinful soul. 

Is recovery possible ? Or whatever possession the 
Kingdom of Evil gains, must it be held irrevocably? 
Recovered innocence is impossible to the sinful soul. 
A right act does not neutralize a wrong one, and 
restore the soul to its former state. The murderer, 
who afterwards saves a life from impending destruc- 
tion, does not cease to be a murderer in fact or law. 
Once entering the way of sin, then, under the reign 
of law, is not the way of return effectually barred? 
So nature affirms, and law. Through all ages, over 
all continents and islands, we look in vain for any 
movement of humanity realizing a recovered right- 
eousness. Under no incentives of nature, by none of 



138 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



its impulses, will the natural heart move in that direc- 
tion, even when iDUshecl by the bitterest consequences 
of sin. And while the soul is in the mire of guilt, 
by the reign of law it is hedged about with conse- 
quences which make the unsought way of return 
more impassable. 

But there is a Power higher than nature, higher 
than man, higher than law. He who made nature 
and man and law, while he cannot annul the verities 
of history, can modify the resultant effects, can 
arrest the fashioning power of the past, and give the 
soul a different future. In doing this, as a govern- 
mental procedure, he finds justification in a divinely 
wrought atonement. He can break the dominant 
power of sin in the soul. The everlasting reasons 
for righteousness, the infinite urgencies whit^h an 
interminable future presents, and the sway of a 
divine impulse, can reconstruct a soul and regenerate 
it into a new life. 

Law still reigns, but the conditions of its action 
are changed. Incentives to evil are abated; incen 
tives to righteousness are augmented. As in winter, 
so when summer comes, law reigns. Where were 
the coldness and rigor of death, are the warmth, the 
beauty, and vigor of life. Law has not abated its 
imperativeness ; yet under changed conditions, law, 
in its absolute reign, gives summer, with its life, 
beauty, and fruitage where before were only the 
sterility and death of winter. 

The gospel can bring the soul into God's summer. 
When the beams of the Sun of Eighteousness shine 
into the heart, there is a relenting, as in the thaw of 



DEXIIL OF DIVINE FORGIVENESS. 



139 



spring ; tears of repentance begin to flow, obedience 
germinates, hope blossoms, trust in the Saviour 
gives the blossom of life, and the inspiration of the 
Almighty fructifies the soul. This changed condi- 
tion brings around the soul, even under the reign of 
law, incentives to which, before, it had been dead, 
and leads it to purposes to which, before, it had 
been averse. New conditions of life exist. There 
are new relations Godward, man ward, and all 
around ; and things before impossible, now come 
freely, naturally, and normally in the historical life 
of the renewed soul. 

If, now, it be a fundamsntal law, that God treats 
things according to their nature, then that renewed 
soul will receive very different handling, because 
of its very different nature. If forgiveness, fully 
arresting the penalty of sin, be bestowed, and the 
assurance of it begotten in the soul ; if now that soul 
draw near to God in prayer, in fellowship, and the 
sweet reciprocity of love, instead of being shy of 
God as before ; if now self-seeking, before so domi- 
nant as to make the soul ugly in its selfishness, give 
place to a careful regard and just appreciation of 
the rights and welfare of others ; if now range be 
given to thoughts, feelings, longings, and purposes, 
reaching out to the em])race of the infinite and the 
eternal ; if the realities of faith are the range of the 
souL's life, and love the controlling principle, — and 
under the gospel all these may be, — then that highest 
law of God's Kingdom, illustrated in every field of 
human knowledge, that he treat everything accord- 
ing to its nature, comes in and secures for the soiil 
an entirely different destiny. 



140 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



Here is the work of God's gospel. By it souls • 
are brought out from the law of siu and death, into 
the law of spirit and life. These laws reign as 
before ; but the regenerated man has passed from 
the deadly power of the law of sin, and come under 
the quickening power of the law of life. In his 
changed character God can treat him difierently, not 
in violation of the supremacy of law, but in accord- 
ance with the law that all things be treated according 
to their character. This is the divinelj^-originated 
and divinely-inaugurated scheme of salvation, in- 
cluding in it forces that regenerate and sanctify the 
soul, and a pardon that arrests the penalty of sin. 
Such a gospel is the great and blessed fact testified 
to by thousands in every age of Christian history. 
This is the vital principle in that Kingdom of Christ, 
which has been set up in this world, the only antag- 
onist to the Kingdom of Evil. 

But this, men will not accept. Blinded as to the 
nature of sin and the reach of its penalty, attaching 
to sin no penalty save the immediate and inconven- 
ient consequences that follow close upon the heels of 
transgression,. they accept such disasters as the full 
penalty of sin, and count that penalty sure of inflic- 
tion under the imperative reign of law. They find 
no room for the gospel, see not the higher laws of 
God's Kingdom, and have no comprehension of the 
reach of his love. So they are safely included in 
the Kingdom of Evil, and that Kingdom finds an 
element of success in denying that the Son of Man 
hath power on earth to forgive sin. 



CHAPTER XIIL 



DOMINAXCE OF SOCIAL INSTITtJTIOXS. 

IT stands to reason that all interests are to have 
place and consideration, are to secure endeavor 
and co-operation, according to their importance. All 
the interests of the Kingdom of Evil are such as 
foretoken for it failure and ruin. Yet just contrary" 
to what all rightly-acting minds would have sup- 
posed, instead of coming to the failure and extin- 
guishment it deserves, it has come to a pervasive 
power, so fur readily called success. This fact 
needs to be borne in mind throughout this discus- 
sion. 

The Kingdom of Christ, opposed to the Kingdom 
of Evil, has use for all human powers and agencies. 
So rich has the Divine Ingenuity made life to be, 
that all the individual powers and legitimate organ- 
izations of social life have place and use in the King- 
dom of Christ. Its claims harmonize with all thinsfs 
that have a right to be, can make these subservient 
to its ends and put them to their highest use. It 
sanctifies to its aims every human relation, gives 
exercise to every power, and direction to every de- 
sire. It has a place for the individual, use for all 



142 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



that he can do or become ; a place for the family in 
all its ways of fiishioning character, and a place for 
all social relations in the sway they have over conduct 
and destiny. Here is room for personal influence 
and example, for the exercise of personal gifts and 
graces, and for all the industries of Christian en- 
deavor. Here is room for the family and state as 
divinely ordained, and for all the voluntary associa- 
tions which Christian ingenuity can devise and justify. 

Among the institutions which the Kingdom of 
Christ has devised and perpetuated, and by which, 
so far as human eflforts help, it gains advancement, 
are public worship and the preaching of the gospel 
on the Sabbath. Herein men have their attention 
directly called to the salvation of the soul from the 
dominion of sin. Herein are presented views of life, 
of the soul's relations, of the grand contents of the 
future, very diiferent from those usually held before 
the mind in ordinary life. Herein are presented 
considerations very different from those which 
usually sway men. Herein the mind is led to an 
outlook upon all greatest things within its survey. 
What is true and right, infinite and eternal, that with 
which the mind has mainly to do, the substantial busi- 
ness of life, transcending all else with which the 
mind can meddle, — is here presented in ways most 
favorable for candid and persuasive consideration. 

Amonof oro^anized institutions the church stands 
pre-eminent, as^ the chief agency for establishing and 
extending the Kingdom of Christ ; and of all her 
methods of action. Sabbatic worship and the preaching 
of the gospel are the chief. The organization of the 



DOMINANCE OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



143 



church, aud the institution of the miniytry, were for 
thiit end. In theory such was the design, and in his- 
tory such has been the practical working of the forces 
divinely org mized in the Christian church. Where 
these forces have had unrestrained action, they have 
proved their wisdom. 

Whatever, then, hinders attendance upon the 
preaching of the word and the worship of God in the 
sanctuary on the Sabbath, is an element of success in 
the Kingdom of Evil. It may be dull preaching, 
poor singing, an uninviting sanctuary, the lack of 
prompt, habitual, and interested attendance of church 
members ; but whatever secures only desultory at- 
tendance, and leaves large classes in every commu- 
nity in non-attendance, proves itself an element of 
success in the Kingdom of Evil. 

And here comes up a remarkable fact, worthy of 
serious study, — the difference in attendance upon 
divine worship among the Protestant and Papal 
churches of this country. As a rule, all Papists 
attend church, ordinarily with regularity. If it must 
be in poor clothing, at unseasonable hours, or on 
days given of God for labor; these are to be no hin- 
derance. If long distances have to be travelled, in 
modes of conveyance that are wearisome, it prompt 
payment of church dues be demanded, these are to 
be no hinderance. 

How is it, now, among Protestants ? Many never 
go to church at all. Men who have looked into sta- 
tistics on this subject, affirm that a large part, if not 
a majority of Protestants, do not attend church as a 
habit ; that only a small percentum attend habitually. 



144 



SZTCCESS OF EVIL. 



Indeed, the Protestant church edifices now stand- 
ing would hold only a small part of the Protestants 
in the laud. These churches may be near, within 
half an hour's walk or an hour's ride, to reach them, 
costing only the relaxation w^hich every healthy man 
needs ; the seats may be free to all who will occupy 
them ; members of the church may stand at the door 
and give hearty welcome to all ; 3^et the attendance, 
however lars^e in the aofSTresfate, is measfre in com- 
parisou wdth the whole Protestant population. As 
in some churches, there may be no dues to pay. 
While all Papists, even poorest servant-ffirls, pay 
their dues, there are probably in every Protestant 
congregation to be occasionally found men who 
dress well, live well, and in ordinary affairs mean to 
pay their way, but who attend church in their irreg- 
ular way, year after year, without paying a dollar to 
meet the varied expenses of the sanctuary. Others 
would be welcome, if they would only come. And 
then in many communities there are no sanctuaries, 
wide reaches of country, well settled, yet with no 
house of God inviting attendance. 

Why this difference in Protestant and Papal atten- 
dance upon worship? No one or two reasons are 
sufficient. Certain causes govern in some commu- 
nities ; others, elsewhere. Prominent among them 
these may be found : — 

1. In this matter Papists have pushed a truth 
into an extreme that has made it an erroneous super- 
stition. Made to act through the senses, it is true 
that our senses can aid us in worship. The visible 
and felt presence of others in a sanctuary hallowed 



DOMINANCE OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 145 



by sacred associations, bowing with us in the same 
confessions and supplications, uniting with us audibly 
in the same songs of praise, knowing them to be 
thrilled, humbled, and exalted by the same truths 
that stir our hearts, — all these give a power and im- 
pressiveness to the preaching impossible elsewhere. 
There is an impression of the truth, a sense of divine 
things, an appreciation of the gospel, w^hich can be 
got only in a sanctuary filled with devout worship- 
pers. No secret worship, no private meditation, can 
stir the soul, quicken its emotional graces, ami lift 
the heart heavenward, as is possible in a large assem- 
bly of worshippers. 

This is not a peculiarity of our religious nature. 
It is so on all levels of life. The highest enthusiasm 
in any common interest, and the loftiest patriotism, 
are called forth when large bodies of men are moved 
by a common appeal. There is power in the exer- 
cises in which large numbers participate. This is 
not the entire warrant, but it enters into the reasons 
for public worship and the preaching of the word in 
the sanctuary. 

Here is enough to justify the use of places conse- 
crated to public worship. Papists have pushed the 
use of sanctuaries to the extreme of a superstition, 
by affirming that certain religious acts, as under the 
Old Testament Dispensation, though singly per- 
formed by an individual, have a power, validity, and 
worth because done, or when done, in the church ; 
at least that their power, validity, and worth are 
greatly increased when performed in a consecrated 
sanctuary. So they flock to the church to do these 



146 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



things, aud to get other thiugs done for them by the 
priest. 

2. Here comes another reason why Papists are 
held to church attendance as Protestants are not. 
To them their minister is a priest. He can do for 
them what they cannot do for themselves. These, 
to be most efficacious, must be done in church. And 
as, in their view> these are necessary, if not to salva- 
tion, at least to Christian burial, by considerations 
which their minds keenly appreciate, as also through 
the power of the confessional, the}^ are held to 
church attendance as Protestants are not. 

3. Then, again, Papists are not offended by any 
contrasts presented by wealth aud poverty. They 
accept the condition in which they were born. If 
they are poor, if they are servants, they accept the 
situation. As they are, they are willing to appear. 
They make no idle pretence to what they are not. 
No poorest or shabbiest of them take offence at the 
presence of the rich in gay clothing, even if they 
take not a little consequence to themselves for be- 
longing to such a congregation. Poverty bars them 
not from church. They are not troubled with the 
ambition that inflames the Protestant world. They 
have not that upward reach of the Protestant mind 
that makes each ambitious of all that any has, or has 
done. With Protestants, each must be the peer of 
any. The exalted condition aspired after is not in 
moral character, not in personal culture, but in visi- 
ble condition, generally advertised in dress. So if 
at church they cannot make show of equality with 
the average, their Protestant pride v/ill protest 



DOMINANCE OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 147 

against church attendance This is humiliating, 
because true. 

In whatever the Papal devotee may fail, it will not 
be in attendance at church. Even Italian brigand 
or Spanish freebooter, familiar with robbery and 
even murder, is careful not to be remiss in going to 
church or observing saints' days. So of the poor ; 
if they must clothe themselves from scantiest ward- 
robe, they permit not pride to take ofience, and suf- 
fer not themselves to be detained from church by 
any arguments pride may urge. Let one take his 
stand at the doors of any Papal church or splendid 
cathedral ; while he sees wealth enter with costly 
robes and gay adornments, poverty follows without 
hesitation. Here " the rich and the poor meet to- 
gether ; the Lord is the Maker of them all." It 
would seem — and may we not hope — that they go 
to present themselves before the Lord, fully ad- 
vised that the Lord looketh on the heart and * not on 
outward appearance. Whatever may be said to his 
discredit, past all dispute it must be admitted that 
the Papist is a faithful church attendant, each in 
such garb as befits his means. If he might worship 
more intelligently, scarcely could his worship be 
paid more habitually, even if more devoutly. 

Looking into the churches of Protestantism, or 
rather about them, we find a marked contrast, not 
simply in the fact that so many stay away from church, 
but also in the forces that bar them from attendance. 
The facts and the way they come are plain enough. 

Churches are built so costly in structure and 
adornment, that the poor can have no assignable 



148 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



portion, often no place, in them. To get the funds 
necessary to erect a church elegant enough to meet 
their taste, the church members must secure the aid 
of wealthy sinners, who also have a taste to be grati- 
fied in its design and details ; and for their invest- 
ment they want a specific return in a pew, to be held 
as private property, subject to the general use des- 
ignated. This makes the cost of pews too great for 
ownership by the poor. Even if some ineligible pews 
are set aside for their free use, they are not accepted, 
because it would be an acknowledgment of poverty, 
of commercial inferiority, which, even if true, they 
care not to acknowledge at church or on the Sabbath. 

But why not as well there and then, as on the 
street and during the days of the week? Just be- 
cause in such conditions they do not acknowledge it. 
Capital is not master more than labor. Indeed, 
labor rules capital as often as reversely ; lays down 
laws for capital as often as capital for labor. In all 
places of business, and through all the days of the 
week, labor stands as firm in its dignity, as inde- 
pendent in its freedom, as capital can. And if there 
comes a contest, victories are not all on one side. 

A few free seats in a church whose eligible pews 
are held by the rich, or even a free gallery, must 
fail, not only because inadequate, oflfering seats for 
only one in a hundred ; but more surely must fail, 
because on the Sabbath, the laborer's day of freedom, 
and into the Divine Presence, it brings the distinct 
notification of commercial inferiority, and that means, 
also, social inferiority, if not vassalage, — a notifi- 
cation which capital would not dare to whisper on 



DOMINANCE OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



149 



week-clays and in places of business, where labor can 
maintain its dignity in conscious equality. In aris- 
tocratic countries, where there are four or five dis- 
tinct layers of society, pew ownership may do for 
those who can afford it, and a few free seats for the 
poor may succeed ; but not in this land of freedom 
and equality. 

Trammelled by this vicious system, yet uneasy 
because of its virtual exclusion of the poor from 
God's sanctuary, some seek to rectify the matter by 
building mission chapels for the poor, retaining the 
costly sanctuary, with its ornate embellishments, as 
fitting their more elegant tastes, their more refined 
society, and their more exquisite worship. Many will 
go on a journey, but not to heaven, in second-class 
cars. Cheap places in which the poor may worship, 
without disturbing the rich in their elegant and 
costly churches, will never, in this country, correct 
the Protestant habit of neglecting the sanctuary. 

The true principles of church building — churches 
large enough to afford seats to all the families within 
reach and not otherwise provided for ; such seats 
free from personal ownership, taxed only for neces- 
sary expenses ; or, l)etter still, for half that amount, 
the balance to be raised by voluntary contribution — 
have not had extensive illustration in this country, 
but must, or this Protestant habit of neglecting the 
sanctuary will never be broken up. 

There is growing out, as an excrescence of our 
culture in this age, a certain exquisiteness of religious 
life. Ritualism is one extreme of it. But it is con- 
fined to no denomination. It is a failing of human 



150 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



nature at a certain stage of development. It requires 
that all the appointments of the sanctuary should 
have the nicety and finical adornment of a parlor ; 
that the exercises of worship be conducted with 
courtly precision ; that every movement of the min- 
ister be with Chesterfieldian propriety ; that sermon 
and prayer be in purest Addisonian rhetoric ; that 
the music be operatic, even if an unintelligible jargon 
to many, and that it be rendered by a few distress- 
infill v-cultivated voices. 

Kelia'ion becomes a matter of eclat, or is nothins:. 
Unusual ceremonial in the church secures large and 
prompt attendance. Men are eager to hear titled 
dignitaries, and are early on hand to witness any 
imposing array that shall captivate the senses. The 
aesthetic element is made to predominate over the 
moral. The church is a Sunday theatre ; its exercises 
an entertainment ; decorum the chief grace ; the sen- 
timental will do ; the sensational takes best ; most 
pertinent truth, stupidest of all. 

When matters of taste, no longer the mere adorn- 
ment and fitting drapery of a high and earnest life, 
become central and are the chief thing of thought and 
aim, they occupy a place which deranges the order 
of life, giving chief importance to what is only inci- 
dental. Under the reign of this spirit, costly adorn- 
ments of the sanctuary and a style of dress among 
church attendants prevail, putting to shame all who 
have more pride than grace, and barring them from 
the house of God. If in the census of the United 
States last taken, the question had been put : How 
many times, during the past year, have you stayed at 



DOMINANCE OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 151 



home from church because you " had nothing fit to 
wear"? — true answers would give surprise. 

It is an easy matter to prove that these are not jus- 
tifying reasons for staying away from church. But 
this is not a matter that skives itself into the handlinof 
of argument. It is not a matter of reason, ])ut of 
feeling. If reason should lead, the feelings would 
not follow. Prove to such men, that they thereby 
affirm the body to be le^s than raiment, and the soul 
less than either ; they may disown this degrading 
estimate of their manhood and of the soul's dignity ; 
still, pride will not go to church except on terms of 
equality. The cost of our churches, the style of 
dress in our Christian cous^reo^ations, and the reactino: 
pride of those who will not attend church in condi- 
tions uncomfortable to their equanimity, are elements 
of success in the Kingdom of Evil, working for its 
increase and strength at the very point where the 
Kingdom of Christ puts forth its most aggressive 
action, — the public worship of God and the preach- 
ing of his word. 

Here is a dominance of social over religious insti- 
tutions. When the usages of social life require one 
thing, and religious obligation another, the former 
prevail. This involves what the mind is very prompt 
to deny, if stated in the abstract, — that man is more 
than God, social laws paramount to divine ordi- 
nances. Let the obligation of social hospitality 
solicit one to stay home from church or the prayer- 
meeting, and the sacramentally sworn vow is broken, 
under requirements of social courtesy. This shows 
a hollowness and neivelessness of religious life, a 



152 



SUCCESS OJ^ EVIL. 



lack of power, which puts sinners beyond the reach 
of the church. The sinews of its strength are cut. 
Spiritual life is environed and encrusted with a coun- 
teracting social life. 

Nor is this confined to personal service and the 
use of time. It is seen in the use of money. The 
usages of social life demand money for adornment 
and style of living beyond the requirement of fitness. 
These can, with many, be met only by rigid restraint 
of expenditure in church enterprises and benevolent 
contributions. Charities are withheld that pride may 
be gratified. Social institutions dominate over the re- 
ligious, thereby strengthening the Kingdom of Evil. 

The contest for ascendency between the Kingdom 
of Christ and the Kingdom of Evil is not fought out 
in the great reforms and revolutions in which nations 
engage ; it is not carried on simply by the great 
movements which absorb the attention and enlist the 
endeavors of Christian denominations ; nor by the 
advances which education and civilization make, 
even though the Christian life act and utter itself in 
all these. The contest covers ail lengths and breadths 
of life, reaches to its widest compass, and enters into 
its smallest particulars. By all ways in which 
thought, feeling, and purpose express themselves, in 
all viiiys by which sway is exerted by mind over 
mind, by everything giving tone to feeling, reach 
to thought, guide to conduct, and shape to character, 
this contest is carried on. Largely has the Kingdom 
of Evil made social institutions an element of its suc- 
cess, even at points where their legitimate use would 
be wholly in the interests of Christ's Kingdom. 



CITAPTER XIY. 



INADEQUATE PHILOSOPHY OF EYIL. 

IX this world all great iuterests have advocacy. 
At first thought, only what is good, right, fit, 
beautiful, and beneficent would be expected to be 
upheld by argument and commended to observance 
by earnest pleading. The simplicity that expects 
only what is befitting will meet with many a sur- 
prise. What is immediatel}" profitable, let it be as 
wrong as possible, will have advocacy. Slavery has 
rejoiced in many an able and well-constructed argu- 
ment, earnestly pleaded and masterly handled. Po- 
lygamy has earnest advocates, not only among men, 
but — strano:est of all — amons: women. If none 
have been found to urge intemperance as a duty 
which every man owed to himself, yet all the cus- 
toms, arts, and appliances which lead to it, and to 
nothing else, have been defended as respectable. 
Even houses of prostitution have been defended as 
necessary evils. 

If vices so gross and harmful have found advo- 
cacy, much more would we expect the Kingdom of 
Evil, which includes with these other things less 
exposed to reprobation, might have, if not formal 
11 



154 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



advocacy and set arguments of defence, at least 
apologies, drawn in the name of forms of good, 
assmned by it oftentimes. 

Evil as well as Good, Wrons^ as well as Risfht, has 
its philosophy. The Kingdom of Evil, as well as 
the Kingdom of Christ, has data for a philosophy. 
It has facts, causes, antecedents, consequences, in- 
centives, appeals, rewards, all the data necessary for 
a complete and practical philosophy of Evil. It has 
powers of moving men in all the ways of their activ- 
ity. It can exercise the reason, arouse the imagina- 
tion, excite the fancy, appeal to the judgment, tax 
prudence, bring all passions into play, and give the 
conscience enough to do. It can stir hopes, awaken 
fears,, and indeed give some scope to all natural 
powers in man. 

A system so comprehensive and distributive has 
vast ranges for thought, can find exercise for any 
talent, and open wide fields for all varieties of 
o-enius. To put things to their wrong uses will try 
ingenuity not less than to put them to their right 
uses. To systematize the Kingdom of Evil will 
test the powers of talent and genius not less than 
to systematize the Kingdom of Good. Fully to 
educe all the powers of Evil so as to make the most 
of them, will require as much thought, experiments 
as varied, as much empiricism, and as earnest per- 
sistency, as to educe the powers of Good. Here, in 
this Kingdom of Evil, there is room for bulkiest 
literature. It is in proof of the world's modesty, 
or its downright dishonesty, or else of an instinctive 
reverence for the Good, that all the world's thinking, 



INADEQUATE PHILOSOPHY OF EVIL. 



155 



and the literature it has begot, really in the interest 
of the Kingdom of Evil, is not so labelled. 

The many in the Kingdom of Evil stay not in it 
upon warrant furnished by any Philosophy of Evil, 
formally drawn out and clearly stated. And yet it 
seems to them that they have reasons for their 
course. They have graduated into life on so low a 
level, that they have no conception of the wealth of 
knowledge afforded them even by material things. 
Some acquaintance with the laws and properties of 
matter they are compelled to have, as a condition of 
physical livelihood. Even more than this they seek 
by an instinctive hunger for knowledge. But even 
men who have devoted their best powers and a long 
life in the search, have not explored all the mys- 
teries of nature, even in one department, still less 
the sciences thus illustrated. Coming up from the 
level of material things, how vast the range of knowl- 
edge which covers the action of mind in all its pow- 
ers, relations, and affections ! Here is room for 
study, which none have fully explored. In such 
narrow range as most men occupy, no comprehensive 
Philosophy of Evil has been constructed, justifying 
the Kinodora of Evil and warranthisr adhesion to it. 
For such adhesion men have thought out few justifi- 
catious. Of mind, as capable of exploring all facts 
of nature and of comprehending all laws of science, 
art, society, and government, they have no true esti- 
mate. They see not the range and reach of its 
powers. Correspondingly meagre must be their 
Philosophy of Evil, and its principles of conduct 
without justification. 



156 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



But there is more than this. Beyond what can 
be known with scientific exactness, beyond all 
bounds of knowledge, the mind can go on wings of 
faith. Belief is as normal and necessary to the 
mind as is knowledge. AYhat is believed is as 
true, and may be as blessed, to the mind, as what 
is known. The soul that only knows, and never 
believes, has as meagre a life, is as far from full and 
healthy development, as unfitted to give its powers 
exercise, as disqualified for filling its relations, as 
w^ould be a soul that only believes and never knows. 
Superstition is no falser a guide than skepticism. It 
is as legitimate for the mind by faith to take hold 
of the Infinite and Eternal, of Divine Existence and 
Authority, and of the verities of spiritual and immor- 
tal life, as by the senses to take hold of material 
things. A Philosophy of Evil that has no reference 
to the infinite and eternal verities of God and Reli- 
gion, fails to justify the life it would authorize. 

There is another direction in which to look. 
Things are getting done, and history is chronicling 
her record, which she permits no sacrilegious hand 
to expunge or even modify. Something is going on. 
Things have been, are, and wdll be done. There is 
a drift and direction in the movement of humanity. 
The past is not for nothing ; the future is to be 
something more than a repetition of the present. 
God has a hand in afiairs, pushing them on. As was 
to be expected, he has, in history, made disclosure 
of what man needed to know ; has done what is 
necessary, that man might make the most of himself 
and reach the highest exaltation. This includes 



INADEQUATE PHILOSOPHY OF EVIL. 



157 



recovery from the fall into sin, the re-enthronement 
of reason, peace of conscience, the joy of believing, 
hope of immortality, allegiance to the revealed prin- 
ciples of the Divine Government, adjustment to 
right place in the universe, and recovery into the 
Divine Fellowship. The Philosophy of Evil, that 
has no such range for man, that passes by the facts 
of history, making no account of the past, and that 
accepts not the only future which can issue from 
such a past, is ill fitted to handle the present, in 
attempting either to determine its aims or to direct 
its methods. 

With all its studies in that direction, the world 
has failed to develop and systematize any adequate or 
even comprehensive Pliilosophy of Evil. And con- 
sidering how much it must include, the failure is not 
surprising. Only a few principles of conduct has it 
laid down, and these are neither fundamental nor of 
universal acceptance. Indeed, a statement of its 
principles in language, to a mind intelligent in the 
Philosophy of Good, as found in the Kingdom of 
Christ, would carry their own refutation. Without 
stopping to show how inadequately the Philosophy 
of Evil covers the ground to be held by a true Phi- 
losophy of Life, consideration Tvill be given only to 
two of its principles, taking those of most general 
acceptance. 

1. That material and sensuous good is to be 
sought rather than spiritual good ; the welfare of the 
body rather than the welfare of the soul ; the pleas- 
ures of this life rather than the joys of immortality. 
Such are the aims set forth by the Kingdom of Evil. 



158 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



This is fundamental in its Philosophy. Not merely 
to the Christian, but to any sanely acting mincl, its 
statement secures its rejection. It involves dispro- 
portions abhorrent to any such mind. Yet this prin- 
ciple is accepted and sways the vast majority of men. 
Honestly and fairly stated, these are the ends they 
pursue. They do not accept this as a statement of 
their aims, but they cannot deny them to be the very 
aims they seek. And from such seeking they cannot 
be dissuaded. The Kingdom of Evil is a Kingdom 
of Darkness, and here its darkness is densest, hiding 
from men any just and comprehensive view of the 
aims they seek. 

This admits of thorough scrutiny. If the aims 
pursued by sinners have not been fairly stated, the 
fact can be shown. On any level of society, in any 
kind of business, let inquiry be made of all sinners, 
and reduced to simplest statement, they will be com- 
pelled to subscribe to it in the form already given ; 
and to affirm, that, whatever ought to be, practically, 
in the aim of their lives, they seek material and sen- 
suous good, the welfare of the body rather than the 
welfare of the soul, the pleasures of this life rather 
than the joys of immortality. Candor and intelli- 
gence will compel this admission. 

It is only occasionally that such admission is made. 
One of England's boldest men of science, with the 
characteristic honesty of a philosophic mind, adopted 
and defended as true a German epigram, which 
made the human aim to be, " To get food, to beget 
children, and to feed them as best one can." The 
highest good which an English king wished for his 



m AD EQUATE PHILOSOPHY OF EVIL. 



159 



subjects, was, that " every one had a chicken in the 
pot." All such make the aim of man to he much like 
the brutes, whose highest good is to be well fed and 
sleek ; just as though " man could be groomed into 
blessedness.'' 

2. Another principle in the Philosophy of Evil 
is, to get, rather than to give. Man took a hint or 
this from his mother's breast. Fie found within him 
a most imperious stomach, and that hunger kept 
its appohitments with pertinacious strictness. In a 
world where life is a forced state, hardly safe when 
in constant defence, wauts pressing upon him every 
hour, and passions oftener and even harder, he must 
have power. This he sets down as a first aim. This 
he finds in wealth, social position, and political 
standing. These, therefore, are to be sought, one 
or all. By these helps he would have his welfare in 
his own control. He would provide for every 
extremity that coidd extort from him a prayer to 
God or a cry to man. 

And just this is what men are busy at. Stop all 
that is done for this end, and what abatement would 
the world's greed, if not its industries, suffer; how 
hushed would be its voices. Industries demanded 
by the stern appointments of want, by claims of love, 
and the urgencies of progress, are something : but 
when the lust for power has withdrawn its forces, 
there will be strange vacancies and silences in many 
places of business. 

And yet how vain is this endeavor. How sweeter 
the peace, calmer the trust, and safer the dependence 
which faith in God can give ! For when man reaches 



160 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



all the power that wealth, social position, and polit- 
ical preferment can give, any hour and at any place, 
he can be brought into straits that will extort from 
him most urgent prayers. So mighty are the forces 
that have the handling of man, that his safety can 
never be in his own self-controlled power. 

Such men never can understand the men who live 
a life of faith, whose trust in God gives them peace, 
be the possibilities of the future what they may ; can 
never appreciate the men whose aim is, not to get, 
but to give ; to enlighten ignorance, to soften grief, 
to lift humanity to higher levels, to insert peace and 
good-will into human society, to lead the soul to 
Christ and ally it to God. Christianity can point to 
thousands of men in every age and country and in all 
grades of society, who have done the best they 
can for these ends, who with their gifts and oppor- 
tunities have shown the same spirit that ruled the 
apostles. 

They give up prospects of distinction and power, 
sacrifice ease and wealth, endure hardships and pri- 
vations, make their lives a total failure according to 
the wisdom of this world ; yet with an overmastering 
love they bless this world, as much of it, and as 
richly, as they can. 

If, now, the Philosophy of the Kingdom of Evil is 
so false, as seen in the two of its principles consid- 
ered, how comes that Kingdom to such success ? The 
minds of men being in falsehood, what is false has 
power with them, as though it were true. Living in 
the sensible they come to believe only in what the 
senses can detect. The overmastering of the senses 



m ADEQUATE PHILOSOPHY OF EVIL. 



161 



holds them in imprisonment. In the finite they find 
no reflection of the Infinite. And the mind that has 
never found the Infinite and Eternal , the man who in 
his weakness, wants, capacities, and aspirations has 
found no need of the Infinite and Eternal, who can 
stand and look above him and before him, and utter 
no cry to the Infinite and Eternal ; such a man finds 
in the temporal and finite all the greatness and gran- 
deur he can appreciate, rests in the finite and tem- 
poral, is satisfied with what the temporal and finite 
bring, is stirred by no fears, and excited by no 
hopes, that reach beyond the finite and temporal. 

Shut in such narrow bounds, shut away from the 
Infinite God, finding not in the near-by immortality 
the eternal issues of this life, any illusion or delusion 
can sway the minds of such men. No most trifling 
fact, no lowest aim, no meanest motive, no basest 
desire, no sheerest caprice, no falsest principle in 
the Kingdom of Evil is there, that has not had sway 
with such men. Sunk to so low a level, where all 
grandest aims, all highest truths, all noblest incen- 
tives fail to reach them, human powers will not on 
that account cease to act. If their relations to the 
Infinite God and to the eternal issues of life call not 
out their highest efforts and noblest endeavors, yet 
will they act, perhaps as industriously, certainly 
more impetuously, under the incentives which the 
Kingdom of Evil presents. 

In such conditions — and such are the conditions 
in which life, with most, ordinarily passes — men are 
prepared to yield to the advocacy which the King- 
dom of Evil fiiiis not to secure. The urgent reasons 



162 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



which pride, ease, independence, and power present 
for the accnmulation of wealth, and the display of it 
in personal adornment, style of living, and spend- 
thrift indulgences ; the reasons which ambition urges 
for gaining place and power by any means that will 
accomplish the end ; the reasons which perverted 
customs and depraved habits offer for indulging in 
debauchery, intemperance, and the whole round of 
passional gratifications ; the reasons vdiich dishon- 
esty and laziness give for not earning an honest 
livelihood ; or, rather, for trusting to the risks of 
gambling, the tricks of deceit, and to the dangers 
of counterfeiting, burglary, and forgery ; the rea- 
sons which lust offers for gratification at cost of 
virtue and family endearments ; the reasons which 
false honor and revenge give for duelling and mur- 
der ; in fine, all reasons which pride and avarice, 
ambition and passion, vice and crime, so garrulously 
and vehemently urge for all indulgences in sin, have 
power and prevalence with men on so low a level 
that they have to do only with the finite and tem- 
poral as presented through the senses. So it must 
be till they rise up to a controlling apprehension of 
the Infinite and Eternal. They are where all these 
incentives of sin reach them and ply them with their 
fearful urgencies. Their faith refuses to accept the 
higher realities of life, by which their course might 
be shaped so differently. This is the most terrible 
fact in their condition. All these reasons enter into 
the Philosophy of Evil ; and, inadequate as they may 
be, are laws of conduct to those who are in the 
Kingdom of Evil. 



INADEQUATE PHILOSOPHY OF EVIL. 163 

The success of that Kingdom is no matter of sur- 
prise to those who see what is put within man's 
reach by the Philosophy of Evil , while man is on the 
low level of a purely worldly life. Being on that 
level, men are held in the Kingdom of Evil by its 
Philosophy of Evil, whose inadequacy just fits their 
incompleteness. 

With humanity in its present condition, living so 
largely in the level of the senses, accepting only 
such views of life as the natural powers apprehend, 
faith persistently refusing to accept the relations 
which the soul sustains to the Infinite and Eternal, 
matters could not well be difierent from what they 
now are ; and the Kingdom of Evil might be ex- 
pected to have its present and very respectable 
success. 



CHAPTER XV, 



PRACTICAL DISBELIEF IN GOD. 



lAKING a sinful life, noting in what narrow 



fanaticism, yea, insanity, sin is, we begin to see, 
not that there is any reasonableness in sin, but that 
there are reasons why souls thus blinded, bewildered, 
and diseased, should act according to their perverted 
nature. There is this sort of legitimacy in the success 
of the Kingdom of Evil. 

In looking for further causes of this success, we 
can readily imagine, that if there should be in man's 
heart a disbelief in the personal character and posi- 
tive sovereignty of God, it would be an element of 
success in this Kingdom. In the very idea of the 
opposing Kingdom of Righteousness, God is the cen- 
tral power and supreme head. It is for him and by 
him. He is its life and strength. In idea, the King- 
dom of Righteousness could be nothing ; in history 
i is nothing, save as God is in it. In the Kingdom 
of Righteousness, God is not some pantheistic ab- 
straction, not the personation of some cosmical law, 
but a personal Being, positive a Sovereign, self-moved, 
autocratic, having every attribute of personality, 




confined, what a blind 



PB ACTIO AL DISBELIEF IN GOD. 



165 



the Fountain of all authority, the Administrator of 
all law, — this or nothing. 

Now if from the Kingdom of Eighteousness God 
be excluded, the Fountain, Head, Soul, Life, and 
Power of that Kingdom gone, there is nothing left ; 
and ample room is made for the Kingdom of Evil. 
Relations exist, wants are felt, forces im}3el, progress 
is demanded, ends must be reached ; and if there be 
no God with his Kingdom of Eighteousness recipro- 
cal to these facts and adapted to the found condition 
of humanity, then there is a void in the universe 
which the Kingdom of Evil may occup}^, but cannot 
fill ; and that Kingdom will be restrained in its suc- 
cess only through the limitations imposed by its own 
self-destructiveness . 

If from any mind God is shut away as the personal 
Sovereign of the universe, such a godless man may 
respect other men of higher genius, richer culture, 
and broader experience ; but conscious of his own 
self-government, and feeling in his pride capable of 
becoming, in certain conditions, what any are, he 
makes himself his own ruler, self-ruled in all things, 
so far as the interests of society permit. Escaped 
from the rule of God, he easily rids himself of all 
other spiritual and demoniac forces, as mere figments 
of superstition. In such conditions all forces of evil 
have their play upon him without restraint, and all 
ways of evil are open to him without resistance. If 
disbelief shuts him away from the recognized and 
felt sovereignty of a personal God, his culture, tastes, 
and pursuits may keep him on one level or another ; 
but in all grades of his standing his autocracy holds 



166 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



liim firmly iu the Kingdom of Evil, — not ])y defini- 
tion, but in essential fact, and beyond dispute. So 
far as be is concerned that Kingdom is a success, and 
the multiplication of such augments its success. 

There are two different processes hy which men 
come to a disbelief in the positive rule of a personal 
God; the intellectual and passional. These often 
shade into each other ; since men, oftener than they 
are aware, are moved in their thinking by deep, yet 
undetected, currents of sin. Correspondingly there 
are two classes of unbelievers iu the personality of 
God, — the few, who have thought out some reasons, 
and established themselves upon some grounds for 
this disbelief ; and the many, who, counselled by 
their own lusts, find such disbelief necessary to their 
comfort. 

1. Failing to detect in man, in society, and in the 
system of things existing in this world, their neces- 
sary incompleteness, men have taken ofiJ'ence at the 
crudeness, disproportions, discomforts, and antago- 
•nisms that abound. They with ready confidence pro- 
nounce these impossible in a system inaugurated and 
governed by a God of infinite wisdom, goodness, and 
power. The details of their argument, with its spec- 
ification of instances, need no recital, even if there 
w^ere room for them. Perverted minds repeat them 
from age to age, as if they had never met with sufii- 
cieut answer ; and thereby they confirm themselves 
in disbelief in the positive rule of a personal God. 

If a law of progress runs through the history of 
each individual and through society, then on this side 
of highest possible attainment some incompleteness 



PRACTICAL DISBELIEF IN GOD. 



167 



must Decessarily be found. From what level this 
jDrogress shall start, how fast and far it shall go, are 
questions no finite mind can settle. Progress we 
instinctively demand, not merely to escape present 
discomforts, but as a law of our being, in lack of 
which life would be clogged with the dullest insi- 
pidity. Without progress, all life, short of infinite 
perfection, would be cursed with an insupportable 
dullness. In no conceived condition could any 
remain satisfied three years. 

There is yet more to account for what incomplete- 
ness is to be found in this world. It fitly repre- 
sents to us our sin. Described to us only by defi- 
nition, set forth .only in verbal description, or 
even seen by reason and felt by conscience, no ade- 
quate view of sin could we get. It is a disturbing 
force, a terrible reality, perverting every heart, 
deranging every mind, and marring every soul. It 
cannot be kept from making show of itself, from 
exciting antagonisms, from creating disturbances and 
working ruin. By all these methods it reveals its 
nature, as we need it should, and accounts for what- 
ever gives ofience in the moral and other states of 
the world. Only sin is the matter. 

Under the disturbance of sin no mind comes to 
normal action. Corrupted by lusts, made furious by 
passions, the mind seethes in the turbulence of its 
own bad state. Refusing the guidance of truth, any 
aberration is possible. Only that disturbance and 
perversion of moral action which now abounds could 
be expected. The vagaries of error, the fanaticism 
of superstition, and the credulities of modern " spirit- 
ism," are in place. 



168 



SUCCi:SS OF EVIL. 



Then society, like the mind, lies close to, and 
takes shape from, this ^^erverted moral action, that 
is going on everywhere. So arise conflicts of inter- 
est, misapprehensions, frictions, possibly a war of 
each with all. Sin accounts for all this derangement 
of society. Nothing else can. If, now, outside of 
the immediate province of sin, a mirroring condition 
of things be instituted, which shall faithfully or in 
any degree reflect sin back to us, so that its ugliness, 
bitterness, ferocity, and essential ruin be seen in the 
materials of nature, in the events of histor}^ and in 
the condition of society, it is only what we might 
expect under the rule of a fair-dealing God. It m.eets 
a want in our condition, to be gratefully accepted, 
despite all its sufierings. If sin, then all worst 
things must have a place in society and history. 

By this fact of sin, and the incompleteness with 
which progress has to do, — and if these be not facts 
there are no facts, — all that gives ofience to the 
sceptic, the disproportions, incompletensss, antago- 
nisms, and disasters find a legitimate place in a sys- 
tem in which sin has so much to do. Eoom for God 
is still left in this system, and what ampler room 
beyond, no finite mind can tell, much less deny. No 
fact yet found denies the positive rule of a personal 
God. Given sin and progress, his rule accounts for 
all that is ; nothing else can. 

Yet here are men brave in making denial of God's 
personal rule in the afiairs of the universe, — a brav- 
ery they show which can withstand all strongest 
arguments of reason, all demands of highest thought, 
and all most earnest cries of deepest feeling, — a 



PRACTICAL DISBELIEF IN GOD. 169 



bravery which will never yield, save to the mani- 
fested and conquering life of Christ in humanity. So 
come denials of God in nature, in history, and in the 
revelations of his word. So come deism, pantheismj 
and atheism ; or, in place of God are put nature, 
reason, cosmical law, and protoplasmic forces ; any 
finite thing that can bewilder and puzzle us in place 
of the Infinite Jehovah that rules on high, so impos- 
sible is it to find any satisfying substitute for God. 

Men who put themselves under the rule of such 
no-gods, generally feel competent of handling them- 
selves and ruling their own destiny. What lies 
beyond their own control they accept as an unavoid- 
able risk. Explore as deep as they will into nature, 
till they find God, they have to do only with the 
outside of things ; till they find God, they know not 
what is the highest reach of thought, which is faith, 
nor the deepest feeling of the heart, which is reli- 
gious devotion. Yet such denials are made by some 
minds of high culture. Some, disgusted with shams 
found among adherents of religion, or horrified with 
evils found in the world, and not having sufficient 
breadth of view to find place for these in the system 
containing them, deny that God has anything to do 
with this system ; and not being able to see very 
clearly what else he has to do, they deny his person- 
ality and rule. Others, of more introspective turn, 
put the Divine Existence into the region of the 
unknown and unknowable, affirming that "the real- 
ity existing behind all appearances is and ever must 
be unknown." While yet others, curious in the 
study of the material world, have found wonders, 

12 



170 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



which, though only nearer steppmg-stones to God, 
have so occupied their thoughts that their undevout 
hearts reach not to Him who is above all things. 
So on different levels, and even in circles of high 
culture, there are denials of the personality and rule 
of God, which bring the Kingdom of Evil no small 
success. 

2. Only a few have thought out a denial of the 
personality and sovereignty of J ehovah ; the many 
who are " without God in the world," whose lives are 
not controlled by faith in the authority of a personal 
God, come into their condition by another process 
and in very different ways. 

With some it is by constriction of thought. They 
see things around them in the material world, but 
look not beyond their most outward show. The 
innumerable curious things adapted to excite their 
wonder and start their thoughts on lines of inquiry 
that reach Godward, pass before their minds with- 
out arresting attention. The stones and earth upon 
which they tread, by their curious forms and struc- 
ture, ask them to inquire what God was doing dur- 
ing the long geologic ages. If the query arises, they 
dismiss it as an idle speculation having no reference 
to the practical concerns of life. In all the wondrous 
things of vegetable and animal life, they look for no 
revelation of Divine Wisdom. At every step, and in 
every object, some token is given of God's wisdom, 
power, and goodness ; but these stir no curiosity and 
awaken no inquiry. At night they look up to the 
stars, wondering what the morrow's weather will 
be, perhaps with a dull and confused sense of their 



'PRACTICAL DISBELIEF IN GOD. 



Ill 



distance, or with no thought at all ; seldom with 
thought of Him whose creative fiat called them forth, 
and whose power keeps them wheeling so exactly in 
their orbits. 

The earth is densely populated with such thought- 
less men. They have to do only with the near-by 
outside of nature. Having outlived the curiosity of 
their early life, they accept what their untutored 
senses discover, as the world in which they live, and 
raise no inquiry as to what is above or beyond. 
They put things to the uses demanded by this life ; 
skilled in the routine of business, they may even be 
successful in it, so as to be known as men of wealth, 
and, therefore, of influence ; may gain position in 
society, and even be counted by some as its orna- 
ments. And yet, in ignorance of the world around 
them, in the constriction of their thoughts, in the 
narrowness of their views, avd in their blindness to 
the revelations of God on every hand, they are about 
as low down in the scale of humanity as any can get 
and maintain ordinary respectability. The grandest 
things about them they have no eyes to see ; and the 
greatest thing to which they are coming is the em- 
phatic pronouncement of their own folly. 

Others come to a practical denial of God's per- 
sonal authority, by the dulness and torpidity of their 
moral feelings. Whatever their natural tempera- 
ment may be, morally they are lymphatic. So dull 
are they, that only sorest remorse can arouse them ; 
so pachydermatous, that only heaviest stroke of afflic- 
tion can awaken the conviction of needing something 
money cannot buy. Some are stolid, bestial, satis- 



172 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



lied with being well feci. In the clamor of world- 
liness, all voices and outcries of their souls are 
drowned. To the wants of the body they gave their 
first thoughts, and they have cared for nothing since. 
Such dull men walk the earth in crowds, lifted up 
by no great thoughts, quickened by no high truths, 
thrilled by no deep emotions, and inspired by no 
earnest longings. Sometimes it flashes upon their 
minds that they are in sin ; but they are used to 
that. With no clear view of their capacities, not 
knowing what is possible to them in endurance and 
enjoyment, nor to what achievement they can reach, 
troubled by no keen sense of sin's guilt and conse- 
quences, their mollusklife seems comfortable enough 
to them ; they drone away its days asking for nothing 
better. Or if anything more is deMyed, it is only 
some betterment of earthly condition, to be served 
by further increase of wealth. 

On all lower levels of life, shoals of such men 
can be found. They keep themselves acquainted 
with neighborhood afiairs, knowing only as much of 
what is going on in the world as can be gathered 
from a weekly newspaper, carelessly read : b}^ force 
of necessity made acquainted with some art of liveli- 
hood, they devote every energy to making money. 
This occupies all their thoughts, shapes all their 
plans, and engrosses what dull capacity of feeling 
they have. Everywhere one can run against such 
men ; they abound in all thoroughfares. It is some- 
times curious to stop and study to see to what a 
small measure a man may be dwarfed, and to what 
dull stolidity he may be reduced. 



PRACTICAL DISBELIEF IN GOD. 



173 



Till, better than such, one has some apprehension 
of the reach possible to human thought, has sounded 
the depths of his heart, felt the bitterness of sin, 
longed to be free from its curse, and has looked with 
the anxiety of a personal concern into the possibilities 
of the future ; till then, he feels no need of a God ; 
and whatever his creed, lives in practical disbelief 
of God's personal sovereignty. That with such the 
Kingdom of Evil should be a success, need be no 
matter of debate or wonder. 

There is another class of men equally determined 
in their disbelief of a personal God. They are not 
men of dull thousfht and sluija'ish feelins^s, but of 
strong and deep passions. Some passion has gained 
mastery over them, and holds them in complete sub- 
jection. They comprehend clearly the situation. They 
see that, if there be at the head of affliirs in this uni- 
verse a Divine and Holy Sovereign, as they sometimes 
fear, then the passion to whose indulgence they have 
sold themselves, is forbidden by his law, and must 
in the end incur its penalty, which means utter and 
eternal ruin. What course they will take is a ques- 
tion which often comes up, sometimes when they are 
not troubled with any deep sense of its consequences, 
sometimes when passion rages, fascinating them with 
the pleasure of indulgence, when the lure easily en- 
snares them. But even when a more thoughtful 
time comes, with its clearer view of the peril of indul- 
gence, and with a more decisive utterance of con- 
science, then habit comes in with its reinforcement, 
and passion again gets ascendency. 

Disturbed by perhaps a traditional belief in a per- 



174 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



sonal God and by remorse of conscience, the delight 
of their passional enjoyments is marred. The belief 
or even thought of such a God sternly forbidding 
their passional indulgence, prolongs and makes terri- 
ble the conflict. This cannot be endured ; will not 
be, long. But passion will not cease its clamor ; so 
belief in such a God is questioned, debated, doubted, 
and finally denied, though not without many misgiv- 
ings. This mv.y not be by any formal and self-con- 
scious process. The deceived heart keeps in conceal- 
ment the weak logic of reaching such a conclusion. 
It is a conscious self-deception, that will not bear 
scrutiny for fear of exposure. No candid inquiry is 
instituted, no arguments examined, no one of all the 
weighty reasons for believing in God are set aside, 
no clear and candid judgment is obtained ; but 
counsel is taken of passion ; and as in olden time, 
the miserable "fool sayeth in his heart, there is 
no God." 

Of all deniers of a personal God, this class is, per- 
haps, the largest. Men deny this doctrine, — a doc- 
trine first, not less in philosophy than in religion ; 
few by any honestly instituted inquiry and rigid pro- 
cess of ratiocination ; more because, dull of thought, 
they have not appreciated the reasons that have car- 
ried conviction to the best minds of the race ; some 
because so torpid in their sensibilities that they have 
no apprehension of the deep wants of the heart, 
which God only can meet ; most because driven by 
some passion, some impulse of ambition, or greed of 
gain, from which they will not be persuaded, and 
which they cannot follow in their way, while hold- 



PRACTICAL DISBELIEF IN GOD. 



175 



ing a practical belief in God. These are the godless 
men, met day by day. They peremptorily refuse a 
belief that would check them in their chosen way. 

TThat support these give to the Kingdom of Evil 
needs no elaborate showing. Every one, making 
such denial, whether by formal arguments or by 
unexamined impulse of heart, belongs to the King- 
dom of Evil, and counts in that vast number whose 
multitude makes the success of that Kingdom. Of 
such character and in such vast numbers, whatever 
else they bring to that Kingdom, they give it an out- 
ward, visible, and numerical success. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



FURY OF THE PASSIONS. 



"ERE the passions of human nature modest in 



T T their demeanor and moderate in their incen- 
tives, they would be only a weak force in the King- 
dom of Evil. Such signs of weakness would invite 
attack and secure overthrow. Of a different sort are 
the passions that have the handling of men. There 
is a violence and fury in them so imperious and im- 
petuous, that they drive men headlong to ruin. They 
stand round about the Kingdom of Evil, like an 
invincible guard, to bar any escape. They pervade 
all lengths and breadths of that Kingdom with their 
machinations, and by ruthlessly dominating over men, 
become an element of success. 

The imperiousness of their rule, their terrible 
fury, and the dominion which thereby the Kingdom 
of Evil gets over men, can be fitly set forth in no 
general terms. The practical working of one passion 
after another must be taken up, to see the elements 
of success they are to the Kingdom of Evil. In the 
limits assigned, the entire family of the passions can- 
not be depicted, nor a full portraiture be drawn of 
any. Only a few of the more destructive will be 




FURY OF THE PASSIONS. 



177 



presented ; and in this we turn from what they might 
be supposed, from the nature of the case, to do in 
their moderate or intense action, to a simple inquiry 
for fact. How in actual life do these passions handle 
men? 

Take that prevalent and familiar passion, drunken- 
ness. Let one recall what he has seen of its violence, 
witnessed of its fury, or the more he has read of its 
destructiveness upon all that is necessary to complete 
manhood and integrity of soul. So destructive in 
its ravage, that we are at no loss for facts ; so prev- 
alent, that we know not where to begin. Not even 
all its specimen varieties can be presented in our 
limits. 

Taken in its beginning and in moderate power, it 
leads a young man into carousal. The next morning 
his physical wretchedness, and the sense of shame for 
the fool he has made of himself, lead him, if not to 
forswear all further indulgence, at least to a fixed 
purpose of holding it in moderation. Alas, poor 
fellow ! he knows not the spirit and resources of the 
foe he has encountered. To other and more degrad- 
ing indulgences is he led, as if the demon, intem- 
perance, had a hook in his nose. Then his shame 
becomes more poignant and his resolves more vigor- 
ous, but as vain. A sense of danger may be aroused. 
He may -set himself about to be an outcast from the 
fellowship of associates, to fall short of all the noble 
ambitions of manhood, to have his name bandied 
about as a drunken sot, to be left to herd with the 
lowest and vilest, and to get the wild and ruinous 
delirium of intoxication in exchange for the rational 



178 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



joys of life, — no matter, there is fury enough in 
drunkenness to compel all that, despite his weak 
protest or purpose. 

Take now a man who has mortgaged himself to all 
manly ways by the responsibilities of domestic rela- 
tions. His wife's alarm and his children's shame at 
first discovery of his intoxication, rein him up to an 
attitude of defence against this foe. He would hide 
it from his children, and protests to his wife that 
never again will he go to such lengths. But moder- 
ate drinking takes the key-stone from the arch on 
which his hopes rest, and out of the ruin he staggers 
a drunken man. He sees business neglected, prop- 
erty slipping away, prosperity gone, home cheerless 
and desolate, himself sinking lower in the esteem of 
others and in conscious degradation ; his wife as sad 
as the destruction of all her fond hopes could make 
her, that keener anguish may enter his soul ; his 
children ashamed of him, so that they would gladly 
disown him. All this may be, not for a day, but 
gathering force and intensity through long years of 
sorrow, of seen and felt ruin ; and the future gives 
promise of nothing better, of no change but for the 
worse ; and yet, vow and writhe and struggle as he 
will, drunkenness with imperious rule holds him 
firmly in its grasp. 

Intemperance has tried its hand with a man still 
better fortified. In addition to domestic ties, he 
may be honored with public trusts. Responsible 
duties of office, pledged faith to constituents, and all 
schemes of political ambition may bid him break 
loose from the hold of intemperance ; this may be 



FURY OF THE PASSIONS. 



179 



demanded by an indignant constituency and prom- 
ised in the hearing of the nation ; but what cares 
the demon of intemperance for that ? It can march 
him into most public places, into halls of Congress, 
and there, in sight of all the people and representa- 
tives of other nations, compel him to make a fool of 
himself, degrade his name, shame his constituents, 
and pollute his office. 

The demon of intemperance has taken in hand 
men of genius and culture, men of finest organiza- 
tion, and admired for their gifts; and from the 
artist's studio, the poet's study, the scholar's library, 
the lawyer's office, the judge's bench, the professor's 
chair, and the minister's pulpit, he has let the occu- 
pants down through the mire of drunkenness, to poor- 
house, insane asylum, or penitentiary, and finall}^ to 
a drunkard's grave. It was not easily done. Men 
of such gifts and culture feel degradation as no 
others can. Stoutly they resist, inch by inch con- 
test the ground, arouse themselves by the sense of 
personal peril, stiffen themselves by their hard and 
well-earned repute, strengthen themselves by the 
trust which up-looking souls repose in them; then, 
turning away from personal relations, they have 
looked over the field of study, to the research of 
which they had given life, but which intemperance 
forbids them further to explore ; and then away to 
Him, the God of all truth, whose light had been the 
sun of their intellectual world, now fading, and from 
their minds passing away into an envelope of perfect 
darkness. In horror at their condition and prospect, 
they cry out with anguish for deliverance, and strug- 



180 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



gle as men only can when more than life is in peril. 
But what of all that ? Intemperance can lead them 
back to their cups, down to a lower degradation, 
only to find a lower still. What wrestlings there 
have been on this arena ! fitly represented by the 
fabled priest and his sons with the enveloping ser- 
pents, by those struggles adequately represented 
only in their fatal termination. Before the utmost 
fury of this passion, how feeble the resistance of a 
merely human force ! 

Then, as if to show how wanton and reckless it 
could be in the expenditure of its power, intemper- 
ance has taken hold of woman, endowed with rare 
gifts and high culture, guarded by all defences of 
civilization outwardly and refinement inwardly, made 
stronger still by her repugnance to animalism, her 
quick sense of propriety and purity, and her high 
spiritual tone. But like any cheapest woman, she 
must come to the low level to which intemperance 
beckons her. The contest that thrills her delicate 
organism wastes too furiously to be long. Sharp 
and decisive is the battle. She cannot consent to 
abdicate her womanhood, to be disrobed of her 
purity, to be clothed in shame, to be brought as low 
and made as vile as humanity can be ; but the demon 
of intemperance can goad her on, and crush her 
down to a level as much lower as before she was 
higher. Let such a passion rage and raven and 
ravage, and the Kingdom of Evil need not despair 
of success. 

And its prevalence harmonizes well with its power. 
Its statistics are frightful to one coming freshly to a 



FURY OF THE PASSIONS. 



181 



knowledge of them. It alone would seem an ade- 
quate motor-power in the Kingdom of Evil. Its 
success is made sure in the spirit, principles, and 
number of those who are under the power of intem- 
perance, toying with it, or engaged in promoting it. 

But if drunkenness be king of passions, it has its 
court and a large retinue of attendants. Lust, de- 
bauchery, profanity, recklessness, idleness, and the 
long list of spendthrift and corrupting vices come in 
its train. These orsfanized forces and strono: defences 
of that Kingdom are in all parts of the land. Wher- 
ever habitations become numerous and society dense 
enough to fester any corruption, there the working 
of this passion and these attendant vices are found, 
destroying all that is fair and of good repute in 
society. When a trans-continental railroad opens 
new and vast regions to settlement, grog-shops, hells 
of gambling and harlotry are in advance of the 
church and school-house. There is enterprise as 
well as success in the Kingdom of Evil. 

But intemperance is not alone. There is fnry in 
lust. It involves the loss of all that makes life de- 
sirable, brings shame, vilest degradation, induces 
most horrible disease, holds in its brief future what- 
ever human hearts can dread, and brings the grave 
within reach of a few years, to say nothing of what 
lies beyond. And yet its fury drives on rough-shod. 
It may involve perfidy to the most sacred entrust- 
ment man ever received from woman, plighted love, 
the charge of a trustful soul, the safe-keeping of the 
heart's happiness. All these it can dash down into 
remediless ruin. The honor implied, when she tem- 



182 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



porarily entrusted her person to his safe-keeping 
for a walk or a ride, goes for nothing. False vows 
may gain his end ; but if not, if there be opposed 
the indignation of offended modesty, tender plead- 
ings, such beseeching as only greatest peril calls out, 
and she resist by force to the last endurance, — the 
fury of lust can break down all resistance, deterred 
by not one of the terrible things that must follow. 
And to get rid of the least of these, he has smitten 
Ms victim down in death, that she may not tell of 
his guilt. From abroad the land, often is the fact 
of such outrage brought to us in the chronicle of the 
press. 

Not merely thus impetuous is the fury of this pas- 
sion. It can be cool and deliberate, if that be the 
price of gratification. Introduction, acquaintance, 
intimacy, friendship, love, plighted faith, solemnest 
vows, are approaches that may have taken months, 
only to gain the power to ruin. And if that ruin 
involve the bedimming of a gem, the fall of a star 
from heaven, a life of anguish, and to a wide circle 
such sorrow as death never brought, the fury of this 
lust is competent to all that. 

It can approach a woman consecrated to another 
at the altar of marriage. With siren voice it can 
charm her silly ear, fill some of the vacancies in her 
heart with distrust of her husband, offer grateful pity 
for imagined wrongs, pave the way by fondling, 
seduce the heart, and then pollute the person. It 
may involve the separation of husband and wife, the 
ruin of a family, liability to legal arrest, or greater 
liability to a husband's vengeance : no matter ; the 



FURY OF THE PASSIOXS. 



183 



fury of this passion takes no account of risks or 
- vengeance or guilt. "VYbat years of anguish follow, 
it stops not to count. Just such fury is there in this 
lust, which enters so many hearts as to be an ele- 
ment of success in the Kingdom of Evil. 

The fury of passion is seen in the retaliative blow 
of hot anger or deliberate revenge. Incensed by 
wrong, real or imagined, how quick such blows have 
come, how fatal they have been. Hot dispute over, 
it may be, a trifle ; difierences which a few calm 
words could have adjusted, have stirred quick resent 
and nerved murderous blows : the whole within the 
limit of an hour ; the guilt, if not remorse, to darken 
all the rest of life. 

In former times it curbed itself to the regulation 
of the duelling code, nursing itself to the strength 
and intensity of more deliberate vengeance. If be- 
fore such fury former friend fall, a wife be written 
widow, and children fatherless ; if penalty of civil 
law be incurred, or the slayer wander forth under 
the stigma of Cain, — no matter ; vengeance takes no 
account of consequences. Wheii its fury has been 
spent and its victim smitten down in death, how ter- 
rible the stroke of remorse that comes. The duellist 
has dropped his murderous pistol, rushed to his vic- 
tim, implored life to stay, and sought to stanch the 
blood his vengeance made flow. Poignant regret, 
bitter remorse, self-cursing, are of no avail now. 
These, passion in its blind fury refused to see. It 
saw nothing but vengeance, quick and felL 

But if hot anger and quick blows must not be, the 
imj of hate can be cool and calculating ; can forecast 



184 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



a plan of vengeance and take time — sometimes 
years — for its execution. Stealthily the net is 
spread. He entices his victim into the snare, even 
by cajolement if necessary. The gratification of his 
imperious hate is the central purpose of his current 
life ; that it is by means so terrible as murder, 
only gives the business an importance that fills his 
thoughts and taxes his powers. To compass this 
murder, he makes every other purpose subordinate 
and every plan subservient. Fear of consequences 
to himself, the possibility of detection, and the pen- 
alty of the law make him pause, perhaps exhibit 
such eccentricities as to entitle him, upon arrest, to 
the plea of insanity ; but his unrelenting hate will 
not stop. He nerves it to greater strength by re- 
count of his- wrongs and their aggravation. Then 
he reviews his scheme of revenge, charges his pru- 
dence to make it sure that every step be covered up, 
and every clew to discovery be hidden ; as if, with 
so great a disturbance in mind, he could preserve 
his powers in balance, forecast all the exigencies that 
might arise, or bring nature into league with his 
crime. 

Then, when the deed is done and vengeance spent, 
he trembles at his guilt and holds himself to the 
imperious duty of concealing it. Even his assumed 
naturalness seems awkward ; he chides his mental 
disquietude, fearing lest the conduct it prompts and 
the look it gives, will show his guilt. Then when 
he remembers that gases will float the body to the 
surface, that fire will not consume bones, that blood 
stains so deeply, and that human blood will not be 



FURY OF THE PASSIONS. 



185 



confounded with any other; ah'eady he feels the 
grasp of arrest and hears the verdict — "Guilty, as 
charged in the indictment." But the fury of hate 
and revenge can blind his fears again. 

Through the years and to-day such vengeful hate 
festers in some hearts, such schemes of murder 
brew. The daily papers report them as accom- 
plished. If the success of the Kingdom of Evil is 
helped by crimes, clearly there are in human nature 
23assions so furious and crimes so fearful as to leave 
that success in no dispute. 

Another passion that has fury in it, is gambling. 
The excitement of risk has a fascination ; thei^e is 
curiosity to know how things will turn. When this 
is enhanced by hope of gain and fear of loss, another 
element of intensity is added. But the game also 
affords some play for skill. Delicacy of touch, 
steadiness of nerve, certainty of aim, balance of 
mind, quickness of calculation, and tenacity of mem- 
ory, are of use, may be put to utmost task. When 
these powers have been so drilled as to give easy 
mastery over presuming novices, plucking them 
readily, then the gambler will match himself with 
others of like skill. Then come into play the ex- 
citement of risk, prospect of heavy gain or loss, and 
the contest of rivalship in skill, which, in certain 
lines, tax human powers to their utmost. In these 
lie the overmastering fury of this passion. 

And such is this fury, that men have exposed to 
the risks of gambling, not simply funds which they 
could safely withdraw from business, but their neces- 
sary capital, stock in trade, real estate, all labori- 

13 



.186 



SUCCJiSS OF EVIL. 



on sly-gained earnings, their last dollar, necessaries 
for family comfort and decency, and then the gar- 
ments on their own persons. And then, reduced to 
beggary, with not a dollar more of cash or credit, 
by suicide they have gone from the gambler's hell to 
another. 

Even so terrible a passion has a side worthy only 
of ridicule, as has all sin because of its essential 
4'iua^H&<ia mailers. Let the young men of a city or village, 
too stupid to be brilliant in anything, whose gayety 
is only boisterousness, ^Yho get out of their dulness 
of thought and feeling only when half drunk, meet 
to gamble as well as they know how ; and in their 
bets, in their awkv/ard playing and disputes about 
it, the flatness of the whole affair, like stupid men 
playing doniiuos, — almost too silly to be wicked, — 
is so worthy only of ridicule, that, were this all, little 
would need be said against gambling. 

But gambling takes on forms worthy of such 
repute as fashion gives. The large amounts of 
money that pass from hand to hand, the magnifi- 
cence of the hall in which its deeds are done, the 
splendor of the rooms in which its ruins are wrought, 
the intensity of mental action brought into play, — 
rather put to work, men so cool and even complaisant 
without, yet having such heats within, — the ruin of 
fortune and the wreck of moral character show both 
the respectability and the fury of this passion, and as 
well how it helps the Kingdom of Evil to success. 

Another passion whose fury enlists for the success 
of the Kingdom of Evil, is Ambition. What schemes 
of conquest it has pushed, what wars of subjugation 



FURY OF TEE PASSIONS. 



187 



it has carried on, what thrones it has overturned, 
what nationalities it has blotted out, for what long 
ages it has held back civilization and the gospel, 
the history and condition of many countries can 
testify. 

To such exercise of this passion many are not 
prone, or had they gifts equal thereto, the lack of 
opportunity keeps them safe. But ambition has less 
conspicuous theatres of action. On all levels of life, 
it finds opportunity to brace up weak points in the 
Kingdom of Evil. To an ambition for position in 
society, persons have sacrificed all that was noble 
and genuine in personal character. Truth, simpli- 
city, honor, integrity of character, and usefulness of 
life gone, that they may follow in the ways of fash- 
ionable folly and dissipation. To maintain a corre- 
sponding style of life, and ape the silly ways of 
fashion, they have incurred debts past all payment, 
descended to tricks and finesse that would shame an 
honest man. That such short-lived folly must run 
a speedy race and come to an ignominious fall, 
checks not its fury. Elegant mansions dot the land, 
which over-ambitious builders have been compelled 
to vacate, leaving thern to men of better prudence, 
and leaving them to stand as monuments of their . 
foolish ambition. Every such illustration of ambi- 
tious pride and folly helps the Kingdom of Evil. 

Saddest instances are to be found in matters of 
less conspicuousness. Ambition for dress and finery 
takes possession of a woman's mind. Such ambi- 
tion, if gratified, gives no proof of personal virtues 
or noble qualities of mind, as the richly-attired har- 



188 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



lot shows ; clearly it is not to gratify a pure taste, 
for that involves simplicity and fitness to condition. 
Yet instances abound, in which women, and some 
young men, expend all they can earn in the adorn- 
ment of their persons. No fear of coming want, or 
any best use of money, can divert a dollar from out- 
ward adornment. The greed of this passion some- 
times exceeds the earnings of industry. When 
credit fails, women have taken to shop-lifting. And 
such ascendency has this passion gained over some, 
that, married or unmarried, they 'have prostituted 
their ovv'n persons to gain the means of adorning 
them; no matter how vile inwardly, if only gay in 
outward adornment. So they help the Kingdom of 
Evil to success. 

One other passion deserves mention for its fury. 
Avarice. There is method in its madness. It has 
reasons. The future is so pregnant with wants ; 
these may be so many and urgent, that their unknown 
possibilities appall the mind. These wants, in the 
shape they take to many minds, can be met with 
money. 

This passion will lead men to deny themselves any 
rational enjoyment of life, to refuse their children 
the mental food furnished by books, papers, maga- 
zines, music, and art ; to deny them adequate educa- 
tion and any knowledge of the world by travel ; 
some to refuse their children a fair chance to hear 
the gospel. Manifold are the starvations which 
avarice imposes. Then to what perils it will lead 
men to subject themselves. Many are found broken 
down in middle life by tasks avarice laid on them. 



FURY OF THE FAISSIONS. 



189 



In distant regions, in unknown lands, in sickness 
away from relief, in dangerous employments, in storm, 
in flood, in peril of starvation, in liability to accident, 
death is braved. Men will go to death's door and 
hell's gateway for gold. Eicher, if they die for it ! 

Inexpressibly mean this passion can make men. 
Some will sell any friendship, if retaining costs money 
or losing it brings gain ; fail in all the kindly rela- 
tions and gracious offices of social life ; subject them- 
selves to the contempt of all rightly-acting minds, — 
the sentence must stand incomplete, for language 
fails to express the unqualified meanness of an avari- 
cious, miserly man. 

How wicked this passion can make men, the world 
knows too well. Men will lie, cheat, steal, rob, mur- 
der, and ruin soul as well as body, to make money. 
How many would laugh one in the face, if he assigned 
the wickedness of their course as a reason for giving 
up their successful way of making money. Human 
ingenuity may be taxed to contrive an act so wicked 
that some men will not be willing to make money 
thereby ; and of which all would say, — evidently 
profitable, but too wicked. If profitable, it will be 
adopted, though as wicked as possible. Such is the 
fury of Avarice, as history has shown, and as is seen 
to-day. 

Not one can deny the fact of these passions, nor 
their fury. It befits sin to show itself thus. Such 
malignant forces are in the very genius of sin. So 
they are at work in society, one here and another 
there, swelling and festering human hearts to an 
extent sometimes reputable, sometimes disreputable, 



190 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



destroying peace, sullying repute, damaging tem- 
poral welfare, degrading the soul from its true level, 
forbidding it a normal life, and constructing a past 
which can issue only in ruin eternal and remediless. 
These passions in their fury induce iniquities, vices, 
crimes, and guilt; and these are capital and power 
in the Kins^dom of Evil. 

Besides, they raise the average temperature of 
passions throughout society. They create an atmos- 
phere of evil which every man must breathe. No 
man can disown his surroundings and keep himself 
from their influence. The enormous wickedness 
which these passions daily perpetrate augment the 
moral distemperature of society. The known work- 
insT of these terrible and furious passions countenance 
their repetition, encourage more modest passions and 
less pretentious iniquities. There]\y they become a 
fruitful element of success in the Kingdom of Evil. 



CHAPTEE XVII. 



THE POWER OF TALK. 

THAT of which the heart is fullest is sometimes 
kept closest. Love may give the heart its 
quickest throbs, and the tongue refuse to speak of it, 
even to most intimate friends. It may take fullest 
possession of every thought and feeling ; may be an 
ever-present gladness and give hues of brightness to 
all aspects of the future, and yet the lips refuse to 
whisper it, even in secret. So, some scheme of am- 
bition, pleasure, wealth, study, or usefulness may 
occupy the ^vaking thoughts and give shape to dreams, 
not for brief times, but for months and years ; yet, 
while in design and awaiting full maturity, the tongue 
may speak of anything more freely than of that. 

This, however, is illustrated only by those who 
have command of their lips and mastery of their 
tongues. Some are incontinent, and cannot hold any- 
thing capable of utterance in words. If anything be 
in them, it must come out by leakage at the mouth. 
They will talk, even when they have nothing to say. 
Others are unnaturally and provokingly reticent, — ■ 
Yes and No their main utterances. They have this 
show of wisdom ; they are choice in their words. 



192 



SUCCJ':SS OF EVIL. 



Talk and tlionglit are often in such disproportion 
as paper money bears to specie, — ruinous inflation, 
redeemable at very low percentage. The words of 
some are worth their face ; others, not the air it took 
to give them articulation. 

The world is very outspoken, and there is meaning 
in its talk. What is the world talking about? At 
its places of concourse and along its ways of travel 
is heard a ceaseless babble of talk, and in earnest 
tones ; but on what themes ? It will raise no dis- 
pute to affirm that the great l)urden of all this talk is 
worldliness. What should the world do but talk of 
its own affairs? Xot long will one listen to a knot 
of men without hearing the words, dollar, per cent. 
Modes of investment, kinds of business, the crops, 
state of the markets, plans of work, prospects of gain, 
schemes of pleasure, tokens of success or failure, all 
the manifold shapes and aspects these can take are 
talked over exhaustively and exhaustingly. The 
news, the weather, accidents, the war, improvements 
going on, the fashions current and coming, the last 
wedding and the next, — how naturally these are 
taken up by most tongues. 

The world's newspapers show the drift of its talk. 
News from abroad, posture of contending armies, 
attitude of surroimding nations, price of gold and 
grain, acts of congTess and cabinet, elections held_ 
or in prospect, excursions, curiosities of the census, 
fires, murders, robberies, divorces, confidence games, 
races, storms, floods, all these goings-on get into the 
papers, because these are what men want to read 
about and then talk about. Secular papers contain 



THE POWER OF TALK. 



193 



religious news, because they must keep up with the 
times, and tell what is going on. A missionary con- 
vention gets reported, and a murder trial, for the 
same reason. Vice sometimes gets rebuked, and 
common moralities secure advocacy. This may be 
o^rateful to the conductors of the press, or may not. 
If demanded by the Christianized state of society, 
the press can be valiant for righteousness. Yet even 
this, and putting the telegraph to religious uses, is 
counted by many as an impertinence ; as though sin 
had a pre-empted right to all ways of utterance. 

Hush all the babble of sin, stop the world's talk 
about schemes of worldliness, its cry for gain, clamor 
for passion, gossip of fashion, and all personal detrac- 
tion, and what silence there would be ! Could all the 
profanity, grumbling, and indecent talk be hushed, 
the world would be much quieter than now. 

The style , of the world's talk make it an element 
of success in the Kingdom of Evil. In places of 
business, on the street, at home, around the table, in 
the parlor, the style of talk indulged is such as one 
might expect, if it were known, as past all doubt, 
that the world and its inhabitants were to continue 
as now for ages. If it would take a thousand years 
for the men of this generation to find their graves, 
if beyond the grave there was nothing that could 
arouse a fear or excite a hope, the present non-relig- 
ious or anti-religious style of the world's talk would 
not excite surprise. 

But beyond dispute, or doubt of any sane mind, 
there is coming in the history of each one a most rev- 
olutionary experience ; an absolute separation from 



194 



SUCCESS OF KVIL. 



all the business, relations, and affinities of tliis life ; 
an entrance upon a condition as diifereut, possibly 
as much better, or as much worse, as the human 
mind can conceive. Take those who count this true, 
and living on intimate terms with them for months 
and years, we find not in their conversation the re- 
motest allusion to the most stupendous certainty 
awaiting them. Does not this raise a doubt of 
the sincerity of their faith, or the sanity of their 
minds ? 

All men know that the transformation of death 
awaits them, that that transformation will cut them 
off from all the business, relations, and affinities of 
life, and that, separated from the body, they will be 
ushered into very different conditions of life. To 
this aspect of the future no sane mind presents a 
denial or doubt. Positively to deny or sincerely to 
doubt the fact of death and the transformation it 
works in the conditions of existence, would excite 
the derision we feel for folly, or the pity we have for 
insanity. 

Yet to such folly, if not insanity, the drift of the 
world's talk carries men. If all the inhabitants of 
the land had met in convention to determine how 
most effectually to banish from their minds the fact 
of their mortality and the Godward relations of the 
soul, so that these should have no power in directing 
thought, giving tone to feeling, or shape to conduct ; 
by no method could it have been so surely as by in- 
augurating the present style of the world's talk. If 
this illusion be broken up by the death of one of their 
fellows, they accept the fact, since they must, and 



TEE POWER OF TALK. 



195 



hush briefly, or suik to quieter tone their worldly 
talk; but as soon as they can give him burial, 
thought, feeling, and the talk thereby diverted STring 
back into former forgetfulness of such an event as 
awaiting them in the near-by future. >7o repetitions 
can bring them to a truer view of life, or break the 
strange spell under which they live. 

What holds them in a position justified only by 
folly or insanity? If not done, it is helped by the 
world's talk. Ceaselessly it calls attention to this 
scheme of worldliness, or that method of gain ; to 
this enterprise of ambition, or that plan of pleasure ; 
holding the mind to a vision so restricted that death 
in the background is not seen. It is as if each had 
bound themselves to banish all thought of dying and 
of the soul's God ward relations from their own and 
every other mind. 

The level to which the world's talk holds the mind 
gives it no range which takes in God, immortality, 
salvation, or any other great reality of religion. This 
general announcement, though received without dis- 
pute, fails to carry to the mind the terrible fact it 
contains. It will take some hard thinkins:, truly, to 
conceive how terribly the mind is wronged by being 
shut up in such seclusion. To be cut off from the 
things with which it has mainly to do : shut away 
from the avenues through which its highest dignity 
and welfare can be reached : kept from that range of 
thought in which alone its highest powers and rich- 
est gifts find exercise : shut away from those sui^- 
plies which only can meet its ineradicable wants : to 
unsphere the soul and let it rush to ruin ; to keep 



196 



success OF EVIL. 



the soul from the best it can be, from the hisfhest it 
can reach, and the richest it can enjoy, — this is what 
is done ; out of all this the soul is talked by the 
world's talk. 

Go where one will, into homes, on the streets, 
along thoroughfares of travel, in cars, steamers, 
hotels, fashionable watering-places, through marts of 
trade, social circles, and to the very doors of the 
sanctuary and Avhat will he hear save the babble of 
worldliness, sinking ofteuer to proflinity and obscen- 
ity, than rising to any grasp of the highest and 
grandest things with which the mind has to do? All 
this is around every soul like a mephitic atmosphere, 
an inbreathed pestilence, palsying the powers and 
narrowing the range of thought, also benumbing the 
sensibilities of the heart. 

The world's talk is possessed of the devil, never 
demoniac more so. Had Satan put his ingenuity to 
contriving a way of making the world's talk an ele- 
ment of success in the Kingdom of Evil, how could 
it have been done better than now ? And of this we 
would be the more deeply im^Dressed, could we pass 
from the general character and pervasive power of 
the world's talk to a detailed consideration of its 
different forms. If we could take up for examina- 
tion the main elements of the world's talk, the greedy 
avarice, the restless ambition, the low animalism, the 
daring profanity, the prurient obscenity, the ill-con- 
cealed falsehoods, the incitements to lawless pleas- 
ure, the stinging scorn, the vengeful hate, the spirit 
of caste, the benumbing hilarity, the reckless indiffer- 
ence to life's sober realities, all of which find large 



THE POWER OF TALE. 



197 



occupancy in the world's talk, — not only see these, 
but also their elFects on certain temperaments, pro- 
clivities, and conditions of mind ; could we thus stop 
and examine minutely what is going on through sway 
of the world's talk, we should have a more impres- 
sive sense of the element of success it is in the 
Kingdom of Evil. 

Many a sceptical argument has put away all fear 
of God from the minds of young men ; advocacy of 
pleasure and appeals to pride, with the deceit of 
flatteries, have opened the way of ruin to many a 
young woman : obscene stories have tainted many a 
mind with corruption ; tricks of gain and crafty suc- 
cess, told to those ambitious for wealth, fostered 
their mammonism and incited them to lawless ways 
of gain. The more we look into its details, the 
more obviously an element of success in the King- 
dom of Evil will the world's talk be found. 

The great bulk of talk with some religious people 
is on the same level, its voice in the same key. 
They are not less men for being Christians. They 
have the same wants, responsibilities, and work as 
other men. Living in a physical body, they must 
give it heed, lay their plans, push their industries, 
enter into competition, hold their place, and make 
room for themselves in the Avorld's affairs. They 
cannot do this in dumb silence. So, much of their 
talk must be like that of any sensible man of the 
world. None have a better right to such use of 
their tongues. It matters not what position they 
hold in the church, they cannot abdicate their man- 
hood, nor resign its responsibilities. They must eat 



198 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



and drink, be clothed and housed, must love, and 
provide for their loved ones. For this they must be 
in the world's work and the world's talk. To what 
deeper significance and higher level this talk may 
reach with cultivated Christians, will be considered 
further on. 

Into this necessary talk ou life's affairs, some can- 
not adjust religious conversation naturally, grace- 
fully, nor comfortably. Their uncultivated and un- 
harmonized consciences are often troubled by the 
almost unbroken worldliness of their talk. They 
make an awkward dash out of it into what the}' 
count religious conversation, sometimes by adopting 
the phrases of religious cant, as profitless as the 
worldliest talk. They have no idea of fitness or 
graceful turns in conversation, and so lug in religion 
by main force, in violation of all laws governing 
association of thou^jht. To such, nothino^ is religious 
conversation that does not include an examination 
into the orthodoxy of one's creed, or the moralities 
of his life. So they put him into the confessional, 
subject him to examination and cross-examination, 
tear open, if they can, all secrets of heart and life, 
and would be best satisfied had they some chemical 
power of analyzing the moral constituents of the 
soul. Like rebel surgeons amputating the limbs of 
Federal soldiers, they care nothing for suifering or 
consequences; they want to exercise their gifts, and 
their tongues give sorer wounds than surgeon's knife. 
Their minds are too coarse to detect the religious 
brutality they inflict. Their tongues sting as sud- 
denly and hurtfully as a scorpion's. Here and there 



THE POWER OF TALE. 



199 



society is infested with these religious wasps, and 
happy is he who can escape their sting. 

Olfsetting these are the cowardly deferential. They 
have an egregious sense of proprieties. They never 
turn conversation into a religious channel without 
offering an apology for it, — generally needful for 
their awkward way of doing it. They seldom offend, 
prevented by their enormous modesty. They see a 
Christian brother in peril, evident! 3^ infatuated with 
some worldly ambition, some appetite or last, — the 
proprieties of his Christian walk and the stabilities 
of his moral character giving way without his seem- 
ing to know it. A faithful, tender, loving statement 
of the case to him, presenting this fact and that troth 
to quicken conscience, arouse fear, excite hope, and 
to gird up his laxities with Christian firmness, would 
save that soul from devious wandering and the 
church from disrepute. But such faithfulness is too 
much for their weak modesty ; so they suffer sin 
upon a brother, and there come years of backsliding 
that might have been saved by an hour's Christian 
talk. 

Of the two classes outlined, not fully portrayed, 
the first disturb the current of the world's talk only 
to make it muddier ; the other lets it flow on, how- 
ever lethean or tumultuously destructive it may be, 
and neither hinder the world's talk from helping the 
Kingdom of Evil to success. 

Unwilling to be shut up to this, one may inquire : 
How can he guide his way amid these currents and 
counter-currents of talk, so as to gain some straight- 
forwardness and dignified use of speech? His feel- 



200 



■SUCCJ^:SS OF EVIL.-' 



iiig is not to help the KiDgdom of Evil by the use 
of a sentence or syllable. How not to do this? 

The end is within reach, yet under no single and 
simple rule. He will have to participate in a great 
deal of just such talk as the men of the world use. 
He may keep it clean from the foulness which the 
evil mix into their talk ; may keep his speech far 
above the profanity, obscenity, mammonism, frothy 
hilarity, vapid jocoseness, and personal detraction 
which enter so largely into the world's talk ; but 
while he is in the body, he must have a hand in the 
world's business and a share in its talk. He must 
breathe the air that is around him, though not the 
purest. Yet this does not deny him the right of 
using disinfectants. The protest of silence or of 
open rebuke may afford him the only escape from 
helping the Kingdom of Evil. 

So far as he participates in the world's talk, he will 
quite likely be misunderstood. The range of speech 
covers a broad zone. He may be well up in it, 
others low down, while many cannot see the differ- 
ence. Some have never found out the different 
meanings the same sentence may have. These are 
beyond the detection of grammar or rhetoric ; no 
analysis of the words can reach them. One recites 
the simplest fact after his morning salutation to a 
neighbor; for example, that a violent storm raged 
during the night ; assenting, both are counted as hav- 
ing said the same thing. It looks like simple and 
easy talk on level of worldly affairs ; this and nothing 
more. Yet though both met in using the same sen- 
tence, their minds could not be much further apart. 



THK POWER OF TALK. 



201 



In it the one saw damage to his crops, delay of work, 
disruption of plans, and curtailment of profit. The 
sentence uttered finds his mind drifting in a sea of 
worldliness, buflTeting waves of selfishness, and grum- 
bling at God's appointments of weather. The mind 
of the other approaches the fact mentioned on another 
side entirely. In using that sentence he saw nature 
refreshed, the air purified, conditions created more 
favorable to health, and the sentence stirs his heart 
with gratitude to a Heavenly Father. 

At the next turn of the conversation the sickness 
of a neighbor may be mentioned. That sentence 
tells one of work not done, or likely to be ; of pay- 
ments not made, and of losses thereby incurred. 
Such are the meanings with which that sentence is 
freighted to his mind. His thoughts move on a level 
which takes in a view of afiairs that is worldly with- 
out mitigation. The mind of the other in the sen- 
tence used finds a very difierent meaning : he sees a 
soul trembling on the verge of another world, hunt- 
ing after evidences of salvation ; repentance renewing 
its work, faith clinging to Christ, and a family stand- 
ing under the shadow of a great sorrow. With all 
these that sentence comes laden to his mind ; a sim- 
ple sentence, yet bearing to two minds meanings and 
a train of thoughts so difierent. 

So we may run through all admissible talk about 
the world's afiairs ; and from mention made of any 
object of nature, of national, historical, personal, 
phenomena], political, commercial, criminal, social, 
and other afiliirs, persons may meet in using the 
same sentence ; but it is like the point of juncture 

14 



202 



SUCC-ESS OF EVIL. 



between two spheres, — their thoughts are in orbits 
entirely different. To one it is worldly talk, having 
no other meaning ; to the other it has been eminently 
religious. On such different levels minds live, which 
nevertheless touch each other in that broad zone 
which bounds talk on this world's affairs. To one it 
is simple worldliness, without remotest recognition 
of anything beyond gain or pleasure. To the other, 
all this world's affairs, thus talked about, stand 
related, as really they are, to God, soul -discipline, 
and the eternal issues of life. Such different mean- 
ings have Christian and worldly talk on a common 
theme, and even in using the same sentence. 

The conversation of every thoughtful Christian, 
let it begin where it will, tends inward and upward. 
From bleakest fact, most ordinary event, and world- 
liest subject, there is a natural and ready approach 
to matters which interest the soul in its highest and 
Godward relations. All natural turns in conversa- 
tion may lead off in this direction. Under sanctified 
association of thought, and the open-heartedness of a 
truly Christian life, the drift of talk flows naturally 
into channels that reach the broad ocean of religious 
truth, whose further shores touch the climes of im- 
mortality. 

A soul truly alive to the grandest things of life, 
quickened by the inspirations of the gospel, runs 
throuofh all talk of most outward affairs a vein of 
religious thought and feeling, ready at fit turns in 
conversation to flow forth in expression; just as we 
might expect of one living in fellowship with the 
Father and the Son, and, as his hopes hold him, on 



TEE POWER OF TALK. 



203 



the verge of heayen. But shut all this away ; hide 
from thought life's grandest realities ; let the soul be 
blinded to its noblest capacities and highest relations, 
and all talk on this world's affairs will be the world- 
liest possible, — barren, shallow, as wellnigh mean- 
ingless as possible, even though having in use the 
moulds, forms, and images of the highest truths. 

Such is the world's talk, — tethered to material 
things, reaching to no depth of the heart's meaning, 
to no height of the soul's aspirations, dealing in plat- 
itudes that give the thoughts no inspiration. Triv- 
ial and shallow are the things which custom lets the 
#v^orld talk about. Eeligious thought finds scant 
welcome ; even when talk runs dry, awkwardest 
silence rather than this. Holding minds to such 
narrow range, upon such low levels, shutting them 
away from inmost and deepest things of life, aw^ay 
from the Infinite and Eternal, which only can meet 
the soul's wants and powers, the world's talk, 
ceaselessly doing this, can be only an element of 
success in the Kingdom of Evil. 



CHAPTEE XYIIL 



LEVELS REACHED OR NOT. 

SOME live in a level countrv, where in no direc- 
tion they can see farther than to the fringe of 
forests that girdle them round on every side. These* 
lie within a mile or two ; beyond, they see only the 
clouds or the sky. Tame ocean view would bring 
the relief of giving the eye a wider sweep. On all 
sides the sky shuts down close around, and the hori- 
zon in all its circumference measures less than a 
dozen miles. 

The rest of the township lies out of sight. Only 
a few farms in the county come under range of 
vision. The State spreads out all around, as the 
geography tells, but the eye cannot see the ampli- 
tude of its territory. Farther on, what sweeps of 
continent there are, reaching from ocean to ocean, 
from the perpetual verdure of the tropics to the ever- 
lasting snows of polar regions. If imagination can 
reach so far, the eye can follow only a mile or two. 
The trees standing there hide all beyond. By read 
ing or travel it may not be a terra incognita^ but 
is a terra occulta. 

We sometimes chafe at this restricted vision. It 



LEVELS REACHED OR NOT. 



205 



stifles us. The small, tiresome, and almost change- 
less picture, seen three hundred and sixty-five days 
every year, becomes a blank to the wearied eye. If 
some one builds a new house, one good that comes 
of it is, that it gives variety to the dull picture. It 
would be a relief if some houses and barns would 
burn up ; but as this would not be convenient to the 
owners, to change the scene and get larger vision, 
one can almost master his timidity enough to go up 
in a balloon at the risk of his precious neck. 

There are other conditions of life. To some it is 
a relief to be buried far down in a valley, into which 
the sun does not peep till a late hour of the morning, 
early in the afternoon hiding from sight behind a 
mountain range, though long before sunset ; on the 
lofty sides and high battlements of the opposite 
mountain they see his sheen slowly retreating to the 
mountain-top, accessible to nothing else, save the 
winds and snows. They have something distant to 
look at, something beyond reach, a step towards the 
Infinite. 

But there is something better than this. We can 
climb the mountains. Going up the hill-side wind- 
ings, we come to outlooks whence the circle in 
which before we lived, and which bounds our earthly 
interests, looks scarcely bigger than a garden. Higher 
up we go, finding how much larger is the earth than 
the world in which we lived. Winding around the' 
mountain-sides, the vista, on this hand and that, 
opens in wider perspective. Here and there — not 
less than a dozen of them — are villages. We see 
the shimmer of their white and the outlines of their 



206 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



church spires. Farther away can be seen the smoke 
of the city. The thread of rirer and mirror of lake 
are distinctly marked, and the varieties of green 
and brown and blue add beauty to the picture. 

Going to greater heights, we pass the region of 
clouds, and for a while look off only on billows of 
fog. Their contortions and heaviugs tell us that the 
wind has taken them in hand, is dashiug cloud 
against cloud, and far below our unbroken sunshine 
is drenching the earth with rain. The elemental 
strife soon ceases : the clouds tumble about and float 
away: and then to the eye comes a vision of gran- 
deur and beauty. On beyond the villages we had 
counted, and the lakes beyond hill and valley, rise 
the mountains, one behind another, in the blue dis- 
tance ; while at one side of the range, and farther on. 
we see the ocean and catch the flash of it^ vraves. 

One comes down from that mountain-top a wiser 
man. The earth has grown in his respect. It 
reaches farther than his flmcy had gone. Life is 
more to him than before. He feels stimulated to an 
endeavor and conscious of a power that never 
stirred him before. On that mountain-top, life and 
ail things have met a transfiguration. 

There is more varied scenery than such topography 
presents; deeper valleys, higher mountains, more 
restricted and ampler vision. Life has levels, 
ranges, outlooks, and reaches of perspective more 
various than earth's surface presents. Differences 
between men, in the range of their thoughts and in 
the scope of their aims, reach so far away towards the 
Infinite, as to be beyond ordinary comprehensiou. 



LEVELS REACHED OR NOT. 



207 



It is difficult to tell how cheap and coarse the food 
on which the vitality and apparent health of the 
body can be maintained ; more difficult to tell how 
restricted the range of thought, how cold and low- 
graded the impulses, that shall keep the mind in 
action apparently healthy. Doomed to solitary con- 
finement during life, if throngh some small loop-hole 
he could have watch of a few rods of street, it might 
save a man's mind from idiocy. So little as could 
thus be gathered, constitutes the mental food on 
which some are nourished, with scarcely no relish 
given it by any condiment of domestic affection. 
And grown up to such stature of manhood as they 
have been able to reach, at street corners, under 
hotel porch, with others of like powers, in gossip of 
neighborhood affairs, or in stories kept from being 
vapid even to their own dull minds only by being 
salacious, they find the highest reach of their think- 
ing and the highest elevation of their social life. 
Books and papers such as "Dime Novels," "Police 
Gazettes," and love-story magazines, come to them 
with excituig relish and refreshment. On so low a 
level are some, that they find a quickening in that 
style of literature. 

The low levels of thought and feeling on which so 
many live help the Kingdom of Evil to success. 
Numerically, the largest portion of the adherents of 
that Kingdom live on such low levels and within 
such restrictions, that they get no outlook upon the 
realities around them. Their horizon shuts down 
close around. They see to the line of surrounding 
forests. Within is the world of their life ; beyond 



208 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



is, to them, the unknown. Within such restrictions, 
they are likely to remain in the Kingdom of Evil. 

It is worth while to come to some just notions of 
the restrictions under which some live. Let any one 
recall the men of the world whom he knows best, 
the style of their conversation, the topics in talking 
about which they seem to have the freest play of 
their powers and to do themselves most credit. 
What will be found their range of themes? The 
weather, the crops, under-draining, politics, current 
news, trade, investments, improvements, and all the 
varieties of secular interests ; these are not indiffer- 
ent affairs, of which they make mention incidentally. 
On these topics they find their highest elevation of 
thought. Here they know the most and come to the 
best display of their powers. If here they cannot 
give entertainment and win respect, they must fail 
of it. The white day in their year is the county fair, 
or some occasion in which the materialities of nature 
are the topics of chief interest. Beyond these they 
cannot see, so close around them shuts the horizon 
of their life. 

Instead of living in such a marsh, some gain the 
advantage of living in a valley bounded with lofty 
mountains, whose peaks, so distant and far above 
them, seem like steps heavenward. In their seclu- 
sion from the general field of literature, science, art, 
philosophy, history, and theology, they have, never- 
theless, taken in some one line of study, related to 
their calling, or towards which in some casual way 
they got an impulse. This line of study they follow 
till lost in its correlations, thereby as inaccessible as 



LEVELS REACHED OR NOT. 



209 



the mountain heights girding their valleys and lost 
in the heavenward direction. To them how much 
grander a thing is life, that it contains this line of 
study, perhaps of discovery, original, at least to 
them. They are on a track that leads upward, God- 
ward. From the hill-side windings of their path they 
can see afar off. They have vision of things that lie 
far beyond every-day interests, and the ends reached 
by toil and business. They get sight of things, dim 
and in the far distance, which meet wants of mind; 
things that will be in demand after death has cut the 
soul loose from earthly moorings. Evcd if by night- 
fall they must come back to their home in the valley, 
it is something, to them much, that they have been 
so far up the hill-side, and had an outlook reachino- 
so far away beyond the round of every-day thouijhts. 
They lie down at night with the conscious dio*nity of 
being more than they had thought, and dream of pos- 
sibilities not reached, nor even sought before. They 
have had a transfiguration, even if dim and shadowy. 

Just such differences there are. Some men, like 
herons and other waders, live along marshes, in 
scenes dull with fen and fog, in a dank atmosphere, 
which the sunshine could only make sweltering. To 
get their food, build their nests, and rear their 
young, — that is all. Others, like the eagle, soar to 
mountain-tops. They look far down on those wading 
ill morasses. They see far beyond the widest 
vision of those who toil only for earthly good. All 
that the senses can get, measure, and rejoice in, lies 
withic what they see to be only a hand-breadth of 
the scene covered by their vision. 



210 



SUCCESS OF EVIL, 



In close proximity live the men whose vision has 
such different range. They walk the same streets, 
live in adjacent houses, and sit in the same sanctuary. 
The difference may make no show of itself in outward 
vocation. Alike they prosecute the industries of 
life, join in its amusements, meet its temporal re- 
sponsibilities, and with like strictness may practise 
its moralities. To any judgment which the eye can 
form, ihey live about on the same level. And yet no 
highest mountain-top is so far above lowest morass. 
To the one class, life, the world, and universe, so ftir 
as they can put these to use, are for ends which every 
day and year demand. Beyond their earthly sojourn, 
and the inauguration of their children into some 
respectable calling, they have no thought or care. 
What lies outside this narrow rano'e is nothiuo: to 
them. 

Is this a vilification of humanitj^ ? The appeal is 
made to facts lying within anyone's inspection. Let 
him sharpen his wits and know what is goiug on 
around him. Let him gain the confidence of the 
most intelligent ^vorldliDg within range of his ac- 
quaintance ; see to what all his plans drive, what he 
would count success, what to him would be reason- 
able and richest reward. Let him sit down in a 
group of such men, or take any way of getting the 
level and range of their talk and the reach of their 
aims, and we submit the case to the verdict that 
shall be made. Meet the wants that clamor through 
the senses, quiet the fear that this supply ma}^ fail 
them in coming 3^ears, and most of them would rest 
in perfect content. Some of them have an ambition 



LEVELS REACHED OR NOT. 



211 



for some betterment ; but money enough can secure 
that. Some have a slight uneasiness of curiosity ; 
this can be put to rest by any intelligent and well-read 
man, or by waiting a few years to see how aflairs will 
turn in this world. Such levels of society are densely- 
populated. 

Do all live in such fens and fogs ? Do such quag- 
mires overspread the world? Are there no uplands, 
no mountain-tops, with purer air and wider vision ? 
It cannot be supposed that minds such as ours, capa- 
ble of such reach of thought, and even of excess in 
feeling, should be held to the limits of such tame 
insipidity. Nor so is it. For all within there are 
objects without; color, form, and perspective, actual 
and possible, to delight the eye forever ; melody and 
harmony, actual and possible, to ravish the ear per- 
petually ; facts and truths, enough to tire the mind, 
could it ev^r tire. There is, in fulness never to be 
exhausted, what is worthiest of faith and trust and 
love. This is no desert universe. Starting on any 
stream, one needs only to .follow it far enough to 
come to a fountain of infinite supply. All around 
lies the infinite, before the eternal. Long before one 
has searched out what is wdthin reach, instead of sigh- 
ing in fear of destitution, his longing will be for an 
eye and ear skilled by better culture ; for a mind to 
know more accurately and comprehensively ; for a 
heart to trust and love and adore more worthily of 
the occasion, and for powers adequately trained to 
meet the opportunity. Straightened in himself, — 
that's the greatest difficulty. 

Men are not all fools. Some are finding out what 



212 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



is within reach in this universe, what is possible in 
the future, what scope there is for the soul's powers ; 
how satisfy ingly the mind can feast on truth, and 
how ravishingly the heart can believe, trust, love, and 
adore. Some have come upon the uplands ; some 
are climbing the hill-sides. Far below lie the fens 
and fogs, where live the ignorant, the passionate, the 
brutish, and the worldly. To these upclimbing souls 
there is afforded so pure an air and so wide a vision, 
that they begin to see things in God's true perspective. 
They see how small and trifling are the things which buy 
worldly men ; whose plans, occupying their thoughts^; 
whose schemes, engrossing their hearts ; whose 
toils, filling all the days with struggles and weari- 
ness ; whose highest joys, beguiliug them to ruin, 
are delusive, fleeting, only wave-crests, if not sooner 
engulfed, quickly to break on the shore. What 
worldlings dignify under the name of business may be 
overruled to contribute somewhat to the progress of 
society and the furtherance of Grod's plans ; but in 
the design of worldly men, held simply to what they 
mean by it, there is not a single element in it of use 
or dignity, worthy of the soul's powers, relations, 
and opportunities ; it meets only current expenses 
of travel through the world, in its different styles. 

Christian men mean something more by it. To 
them, the chief value is in the training afforded to 
souls, and in the help it gives to humanity and the 
gospel. To the same uses God holds it. But take 
the business of the world, as worldly men hold it, in 
their spirit, with their aims, and for their purposes ; 
give it all the dignity its magnitude can claim, rep- 



LEVELS BEACHED OR XOT. 



213 



resented in the vast amounts of its traffic, in the sums 
of all its investments, and in the total or all its indus- 
tries ; then, carry it all into the light of the eternal 
world and into the presence of God, and what will 
worldly men say it amounts to? Thus seen, it is 
safe to leave the estimate to their intelligence and 
candor. 

What is fact, can be found out ; what is real, 
can be seen true : and what is true, can be known. 
There are men who do not have to go through the 
experience of ruin to find out what is ruinous. On 
level with fen and enveloped in fog, some may not 
see far. But men have climbed np from marsh to 
mountain. In the pure air and wide outlook of hill- 
top, they look down upon the eager scrambling of 
worldly men, distracted even out of the dull dignity 
of flocks at pasture, fevered with lusts, crazed in 
their low ambitions, and blinded to the uses of life. 
TThere this distraction of worldliness begins, where 
it will end, and what it will amount to, is visible 
enough ; and there are men in such high outlook 
that they can see it. 

If not actually, one can in imagination take a 
stand where he can look down upon worldliness in 
its intensest action, the seething life of a city, and 
watch there till a whole generation has done its work 
and passed away. Could he have watched with 
omniscient eye, have seen all that was done and kept 
strict account of what was accomplished by men 
moved only by the common impulses of worldliness. 
except in having such worldly enterprises overruled 
in the interests of the gospel and in preparing a 



214 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



better future for humanity, — ends not at all within 
their aim, — his verdict would l)e that that genera- 
tion of men, thus watched, might as well not have 
been. 

And just the littleness there is in their purposed 
aims can be seen. Myriads of clear-eyed and far- 
seeing Christians have the whole scope and range of 
worldliness directly under their vision. They are in 
position to see its utmost boundaries. They can 
say concerning it : Only this ; nothing more. And 
as they pursue their hill-side windings, they do some- 
thing more than so negative a thing as minifying 
worldliness. They find something positive in the 
range of vision which faith gives them. [No, Read- 
er, I will not excuse you, nor admit that I am 
departing from the sober realities of life. I hold 
you to the duty of bearing me company.] For 
knowledge is not more normal to the human mind, 
nor based upon more absolute warrant, than is faith. 
Taking the mind in all its modes of action and moods 
of feeling, not more fitting and necessary to its full 
life and development is knowledge than faith. Not 
more does the soul need to know than to believe. 
The nlethods of faith are legitimate. No nicely con- 
structed telescope is better fitted to the eye than 
faith to the soul. No astronomical almanac more 
exact than the data which faith accepts ; no laws of 
lio^ht more exact than the laws which come into the 
handling of faith. More normal use is not got by 
the eye in seeing than by the soul in believing. 
The believing soul is the only soul that puts its pow- 
ers to fitting use, that accepts the situation as it is, 



LEVELS REICHEI) OR NOT. 



215 



aud adjusts itself into existing relations. The man 
that believes nothing, stands as far below his proper 
level as the man that knows nothing. 

And souls there are, living in surrounding homes, 
met daily on the streets, that have such outlook as 
faith gives them. They have access to mountain- 
tops, to some Pisgah whence they can overlook the 
promised land. The range of their vision is tele- 
scopic. Away beyond utmost reach of worldly 
plans, away beyond what shrewdest men of business 
ever schemed, the vision of intelligent Christian 
faith reaches. There are men, not wiser than others 
in this world's affairs, perhaps less successful in its 
business, whose thoughts are daily familiar and their 
hearts daily quickened with what lies further away 
and higher up than plans of worldliness or schemes 
of ambition ever reached. If mountain-top gives 
clearer and ampler vision than can be had on level 
with fen and amidst fog, much more does the faith 
of humblest Christian take in what utmost grasp of 
worldliness cannot reach. 

Such altitudes are not gained by balloon ascent, 
nor by mountain climbing, however much may thus 
be suggested. Abatement of that intense worldli- 
ness which holds the mind to such narrow range so 
persistently, will help a little. Instructed reason 
and intelligent thought can see far enough to find 
the titmost bounds of worldly schemes ; can see 
where they must end ; can see in what restrictions 
a soul must be, shut up within the narrow range 
traversed by men of the world, and can see what 
infinite possibilities lie beyond. But further on. 



216 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



beyond the range of worldly plans, beyond utmost 
scope of the senses, beyond the restrictions m which 
life is here held, in those regions beyond the grave, 
which the imagination can fill with such opposite 
possibilities, there and then what is to be found can 
be discovered only by faith. What so distant in the 
future, what so far away, as to be beyond the tele- 
scopic vision of faith ? Whatever concerns the soul 
must be within reach of ultimate discovery. Faith 
finds all forces, all existences, constituting the uni- 
verse, or presiding over its destiny, and leads the 
soul into adjustment with these. Such is the range 
and work of faith ; such the mount of vision on 
which the believing stand. Beyond the field of 
knowledge, beyond the realm of reason, faith 
searches ; in the light of God's truth and upon war- 
rant of God's word, it makes discovery of whatever 
concerns the soul in the hereafter and the beyond. 

Not only does the soul gain a mount of vision 
having such wide survey, but finds itself in fellow- 
ship with apostles, prophets, and the Son of God. 
A cloud of such great glory overshadows the believer 
that he says : " It is good to be here," Here would 
he build tabernacles and make his abode. Here he 
beholds all things in God's true perspective. Now 
he sees the business of the world, all the affinities 
and responsibilities of life, in their true relation. 
What all things are for, their agency in disciplining 
the soul, the contribution they make to human salva- 
tion, the overthrow of the Kingdom of Evil and the 
establishment of the Kingdom of Eighteousness, 
become intelligible to the believer, while upou 



LEVELS REACHED OR NOT. 



217 



that mount of traus figuration to which faith lifts 
him. 

Some, O, how many ! never come upon any mount 
of transfiguration, into the brightness of no divine 
truth, into the glory of no divine revealment, and 
into the joy of no divine fellowship. What their 
senses certify, what they find out by processes of 
knowledge, — with these they have to do ; what lies 
beyond is to them a blank. They have no work! 
save that which comes to them through the senses ; 
to them there are no forces or beings except such as 
they can measure and count by their methods of 
knowledge. They see not to the boundary of the 
morass in which they live ; cannot penetrate the fog 
in which they are enveloped. When ambition, by the 
luck of fortune, helps them upon some bog above the 
general level, they alternate their complacent pride 
with pity for perhaps some commercially unfortunate 
Christian, who, nevertheless, lives in a world of 
truth, beauty, and blessedness of which they never 
dreamed. 

Count those who live in fogs and fens, in the mo- 
rass of mere worldliness, w^hose utmost bounds of 
thought and reach of aim lie not beyond business ; 
count those who have never come upon any mountain- 
top view of life, and who never went up upon any 
mount of transfiguration, and the success of the 
Kingdom of Evil will be no matter of surprise. 

15 



CHAPTER XIX. 



IDOLATKY or GENIUS. 

BETWEEN the Kingdom of Evil and the King- 
dom of Righteousness the matter of obstinate and 
irreconcilable dispute is, What are the conditions 
of highest good and welfare? In the Kingdom of 
Righteousness these are affirmed to be justice, truth, 
love, sincerity, faithfulness, purity, and all other 
right principles and holy affections found in the or- 
ganization of God's moral government, and adherent 
in his character. Such is the make of the soul, such 
its wants and powers, such its reason and conscience ; 
that only when character is based on these fundamen- 
tal princiiDles of God's moral government, and shaped 
by them, are highest good and welfare reached. 
Profoundest study of the soul reveals this more clear- 
ly, and widest research makes it more indisputable. 

Passing from the study of an individual soul to 
society, or to souls in their relations, these principles 
are seen to harmonize every interest, call out every 
power, meet every want, and secure highest welfare 
to each and all. Under the sway of these principles 
no weakest can be down-trodden, no poorest starved, 
none wronged ; the capacity of each, on all levels, is 



IDOLATRY OF GENIUS. 



219 



fully met. Under acceptance of these principles of 
God's moral government all this must be ; otherwise, 
utterly impossible. 

To this the Kingdom of Evil demurs. It takes no 
flat-footed stand of honesty, affirming that wrong is 
right; sin, the safest guide; autonomy, better than 
law. There is a befoolment impossible, even to 
blinded men. So matters are taken up at a remove 
from such a centre. Mammonism is only prudence 
wisely looking out for the future ; restless ambition 
is only making the most of one's self ; so good taste 
stops not short of pride ; desire for food and drink 
runs to animalism and debauchery, and love to licen- 
tiousness ; so troop in the whole array of the world's 
sins, vices, and crimes, each under leadership of some 
justification, and maintaining very remote relations 
to some virtue. Principles of action, aims of pursuit, 
modes of conduct, and fashion of character are justi- 
fied, if possible, by some plausibility, chosen and 
stuck to any w^ay ; all of which are against the right- 
eousness, justice, truth, love, purity, and faithfulness, 
enjoined under the moral government of God ; and 
equally against the highest welfare of the soul, and 
the best ordering of society. A totally difierent out- 
look of life is gained ; a totally difierent judgment of 
man's normal character is formed ; a totally difi'erent 
view is held of his relations ; a totally different esti- 
mate of the wants and powers of the soul is main- 
tained ; and a totally diflTerent forecasting of the 
future is indulged, from what would be, under 
acceptance of the facts and truths of God's moral 
government. 



220 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



That man is a sinner is denied ; he is only suffering 
under ignorance, lack of culture, and from unfavor- 
able surroundings. What is abnormal, is accounted 
for by bad digestion, mal-formed brain, inheritance 
of vicious temperament, defective training, and unto- 
ward example. Sin, if admitted, is minified, and 
held capable of management under hygiene and skil- 
ful moralities. So no room is left for the gospel, 
with its scheme of redemption ; no need of regenera- 
tion and sanctification by a divine power. With 
emphasis is denial made of any such destiny and 
allotment of souls as is affirmed in Divine Revelation. 
The strictest in the Kingdom of Evil allow only such 
allotment hereafter as is now made by the general 
judgment of society. To shut men of wealth out of 
heaven, they say, will never do. If reminded of 
the grinding oppressions and corrupt practices by 
which that wealth has been gained, and of the oppres- 
sive ways in which it has been used, consent is 
readily got that some rich men should go to hell ; but 
surely not the rich that are also respectable. Society 
pays court to such here, and, forsooth, must there. 

To none does this class of thinkers, in their self- 
caring ways, pay more respect than to men of genius, 
men who by their inborn gifts have risen high in the 
world s esteem, and have written their names indeli- 
bly on the world's memory. Not to make room for 
all such in heaven, is their sufficient condemnation of 
the gospel. 

This Idolatry of Genius is an element of success 
in the Kingdom of Evil. It is representative of a 
way of thinking pervadino^ all the heiohts, if not all 



IDOLATRY OF GENIUS. 



221 



the raDOfes of that Kino-dom, iu flat contradiction, and 
in irreconcilable opposition, to all that is affirmed in 
the Kino^dom of Eio^hteousness. It demands a recon- 
struction of religions systems, insisting that some- 
thing more, and else, than moral character shall be 
taken into account, in determining the eternal issues 
of life ; that judgment at the final assize shall be held 
as society now holds it ; that heaven shall be open to 
all who have access to good society here. 

This looks fair to human eyes ; for there is some- 
thins^ exalted in o:enius. It ogives one a sense of 
comfort and dignity to belong to a race in which are 
men and women of such towering genius as the world 
has known. In their attainments and achievements 
we see what reach human thoughts can have ; how 
great a soul can be. The men who have opened to 
us the higher ranges of science, explored the out- 
lying fields of astronomy, discovered a planet by the 
subtleties of mathematics, told us of the materials 
which enter into the combustion of sun and more dis- 
tant star, let us into the mysteries of the microscopic 
world, spoken to us of the laws and forms of life in 
ocean beds, read to us from rocky tablets the legends 
of geologic revolutions in ages lying far beyond the 
chronologist's record ; the men who have harnessed 
for man's use the most subtle and potent agencies or 
nature, opened ways for speech through ocean beds, 
and ways for travel across continents, surmounting 
all barriers of desert and mountain ; the men who 
have risen to command and authority in the army and 
nation, guiding the one to victory and the other to 
safety, when destruction to both seemed impending ; 



222 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



the men who, when and where such things were pos- 
sible, have built up a dynasty, holding the reins of 
power through many generations, and by their word 
bringing peace or war ; the men and women who, in 
poetry, music, painting, sculpture, architecture, and 
adjacent realms of art, have brought us ideals of 
beauty, harmony, order, and proportion ; those who 
have fathomed for us the profouudest depths of phi- 
losophy and the deepest mysteries of faith, shaping 
the world's thinking for ages ; and, too, the men and 
women, who by creations of their genius have touched 
the world's heart, made it w^eep over the down-trod- 
den, stirred through the nation, and beyond, a pity 
that would not rest till the cry for justice was lost in 
the shout of emancipation ; men and women who in 
fiction have presented the highest ideals into which 
human character can be wrought, attracting the 
world's attention, fascinating its admiration; and 
most of all, softening the world's heart towards God's 
poor ; if these may not go to heaven, who may? 

Such question comes to us from the Kingdom of 
Evil, now because so respectable as to challenge 
admiration. And the question is backed up with the 
more defiant one : What will your heaven be w^ithout 
them? The case is stated in its strength, because to 
many minds there is strength in it, — felt all the more 
as a list of the world's geniuses is taken up, their 
names read ofi", and their achievements for humanity 
recalled. Here, three things require attention. 

1. Not all men of genius are shut out of the King- 
dom of Righteousness, and, therefore, not out of 
heaven. For otherwise, Eeligion consists with the 



IDOLATRY OF GENIUS. 



223 



highest genius. Not only is it an added glory, but 
essential to the highest reach of genius. For what 
has genius to do, or ever has done, than to handle the 
realities of fact, thought, and feeling? And these in 
their highest forms and broadest relations are included 
in religion, which is only the fitting adjustment of 
the soul to these just named realities. No reality of 
fact, thought, and feeling can be understood in isola- 
tion, only in its surroundings and relations. God 
left out of account, no fact of nature or history, no 
thought of mind or feeling of heart, can be fully un- 
derstood. He who knows not God, knows not any- 
thing as it can be known. Whatever Dickens — and 
the same may be said of many another genius — may 
have been as a man, as a writer he was not religious ; 
he took not in what was truest and grandest concern- 
ing humanity. When his genius soared to its greatest 
height, it only showed how much greater he might 
have been, if he had only studied human character 
and society from that point in which he would have 
seen them in their relations to God. We admire his 
genius only to lament that it had such narrow range. 
Had he studied society in the height, breadth, and 
depth of religious thought and feeling, there would 
have been added an element of the infinite to the 
productions of his genius, which now, conceived in 
all their reach, are confined within very narrow 
bounds, having to do with man simply as a dweller 
on this earth. If he had found a place for the Infinite 
and Eternal in his works, they would have reached 
such immortality as human restrictions allow. 

There is no such element of enlargement or factor 



224 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



of multiplication, as religion affords to genius, what- 
ever its sphere. No genius can be what is possible, 
without religion. He needs it not merely as the 
highest philosophy, in which all things find their cul- 
mination, and apart from which they are seen only in 
piecemeal ; but in his loftiest flight he needs the 
inspiration of religious thought and feeling to bring 
him into truest appreciation and to fullest mastery of 
whatever he essays to handle. The irreligious genius 
presents things only in appearance in temporal rela- 
tions, at best only in isolation ; not in their profound- 
est reality and widest relations ; for then would he 
have to take all greatest realities of religion into 
the field of his thought. So there is an element of 
incompleteness — and that means weakness — in his 
works, which leads to the decay and oblivion to 
which they are doomed. 

This is not bald affirmation ; it is the world's vote, 
the pronouncement of history. As a class, religious 
names have an immortality reached by no other. 
These are the names of highest chronology. "The 
sweet Singer of Israel," and the "Apostle to the 
Gentiles," were not the only men of genius in their 
ages. Yet David and Paul have, to-day, a place in 
more hearts, do more to shape the thoughts and feel- 
ings of humanity, than ever before, than all their 
cotemporary men of genius in the Kingdom of Evil. 
Indeed, though known to students, what knows or 
cares the world for their cotemporaries ? And this 
place David and Paul hold, not simply by their inspi- 
ration of God, which the Kingdom of Evil denies, 
but, in part, because of their sanctified genius. They 



IDOLATRY OF GENIUS. 



225 



took in the meaning of providence and history ; they 
saw all things in their relations to the sublime pur- 
poses God is working out ; they accepted the situa- 
tion, — man a sinner, Christ a gracious Saviour. Their 
genius made them what they were, because it was 
inspired by religious faith and sanctified by holy 
love. But for this, history would have left them in 
the oblivion where rest their cotemporary men of 
genius in the Kingdom of Evil, now known, if at 
all, only as forming the necessary background in the 
scenes of their heroic action, or as flies in amber. 

For men of sanctified genius, humanity has pre- 
pared and preserves a niche as for no others, because 
men were made to be religious. Nothing so normal 
as that. The quailing eye of the wrong-doer, the 
blush of shame, and the rebuke of conscience tell that 
men were not made to sin. Men must be true to 
their nature, and cherish carefulest and longest the 
works of genius that have brought closest to their 
hearts the sublime realities of faith. It is humiliat- 
ing to take up a biographical dictionary, and see in 
what brief paragraphs the world's great men are 
disposed of. Little concerning them is of interest 
after a few centuries. Admiring the monuments that 
preserve their names, men have to inquire who they 
were and what they did. Not so with men of genius 
that have quickened the world's religious aspirations, 
helped its deliverance from sin, and lifted humanity 
Godward. 

There are men of genius who have not done this, 
as the world knows too well ; men who have prosti- 
tuted high gifts of genius to the bewilderment and 



226 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



corruption of men ; have thrown a fascinating charm 
over all Avays of evil ; given a phosphorescent glare 
of brilliancy to foulest corruptions ; made vice beau- 
tiful ; given sin what dignity it could bear, and be- 
smirched virtue as best they could. To give their 
names and tell wherein would only justify and in- 
tensify this charge. If in the galaxy of sanctified 
genius in heaven, such be wanting, it will be all the 
more resplendent. 

2. Some simplest truth often settles gravest mat- 
ters. 1^0 endowment of wit or brilliancy of conver- 
sational powers would be the necessary qualification 
of an engineer driving the train on which we ride. 
Skill in poetic or musical composition commend no 
one as a legal adviser. When disease is doing its 
work of destruction with our loved ones, we inquire 
not for a physician best known for skill in metaphys- 
ical casuistry. No profoundness of erudition in 
abstract science would give us confidence in the 
leader of an army. Strength of muscle and athletic 
skill are not what we seek in a religious instructor. 
All the way through, and in every condition, we 
demand attainments that shall give fit qualification. 

So genius fits not for heaven. As well admit one 
on the bulk of his estate, the height of his stature, 
his skill in athletics, or the reach of his longevity. 
Fiction and poetry are forms of thought, and, to be 
commended or condemned, account must be taken 
of their contents. So genius is skill and power, and, 
for commendation or condemnation, respect must be 
had to what it does. Genius runs in all directions, 
through all ranges of knowledge and art. It may be 



IDOLATRY OF GENIUS. 



227 



in skill of eye, ear, voice, or fingers. Look at the 
bounds of its range ; subtlest metaphysical inquiry, 
utmost research of science, thorough analysis of 
human nature, skill in arts constructive, musical, 
poetical, and fictional, in aesthetics, in military affairs 
and monetary, down to skill in games, chances, 
and horse-flesh. The world has made boast of its 
geniuses in all these departments, and lower. Gather 
all these men and women of genius, with their pride 
and passion and nervous particularity, into a world 
by themselves, with such surroundings as their gifts 
require, and what kind of a heaven would it be? 

The universe is for something, and so is this life. 
And the issues which eternity contains, and which it 
alone can contain, are that something. That highest 
end is moral, simply because the moral includes all 
things else. The soul to be right morally, reli- 
giously, or spiritually, requires exclusion of defect 
in all other ranges of its being. Whatever genius 
has reached, or has done, only met the moral re- 
quirement in part. These men of genius proved 
themselves worthy of the world's admiration by note- 
worthy development in some single direction, that is 
only part in that complete and full-orbed life which 
meets the moral requirement. Genius is only ex- 
crescent, partial, and incomplete ; and if, as too 
often, out of harmony with moral obligation, it is 
vvanting in the essentials of highest life, and is unad- 
justed to the realities and uses of the universe. 

God is the greatest reality, — more than he has 
made, more than he has done. Out of harmony with 
him, opposed to his moral government, antagonistic 



228 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



to the principles of justice, righteousness, love, faith, 
purity, and holiness enjoined in his word ; in denial 
of the gospel's facts, that man is a sinner and Christ 
a Saviour; whatever else genius can be, it is lacking 
in adjustment to the central and greatest realities of 
the universe ; and even by the laws of order and fit- 
ness it must go with the defective. Holiness is the 
law of heaven, love its pervading spirit, Christ its 
central glory, and whatever fails to harmonize with 
these cannot have place or fellowship there. 

3. Holiness of moral character is the highest type 
and measure of man. In Grod, infinite truth, power, 
goodness, purity, wisdom, love, and whatever other 
glory or perfection the mind can conceive, find their 
exhaustless source and perfect illustration. Highest 
development of genius, even if sanctified by loyalty 
to God, is only some small approach Godward, on 
a low level and within narrow range. "Nearer, my 
God, to Thee," is a cry for greatness, the highest a 
soul can reach. 

It is no arbitrary enactment that opens heaven 
only to souls loving God, believing in Christ, repent- 
ing of sin, and hungering after righteousness. Such 
accept the situation, themselves lost in sin, and 
Christ the only Saviour. In faith they open their 
hearts Godward, and receive what God has to give. 
Comprehensively, it is a new life. It recreates the 
soul, unites it to God, gives the soul God's thoughts, 
principles, spirit, and feelings, and lifts the soul into 
fellowship with God in views, aims, and desires. 
Here is the germ of a new life, to be unfolded eter- 
nally ; and in its unfolding will be included all that 



IDOLATRY OF GEXIUS. 



229 



is possible to a soul, — a reach of thought, a compre- 
hensiou of truth, au appreciatiou of beauty in all 
forms and of harmony in all combiuations, a recip 
rocation of love, a power of accomplishment, and a 
flow of enjoyment, beyond reach of any genius yet, 
or of all combined. The Christian life is the hio'h- 
est any soul can have, for it includes germinally all 
a soul can be, do, or enjoy. Eudimentaily, the Chris- 
tian is the highest genius. 

Many do not receive this. The men of the world 
do not. We know their blindness too well to expect 
it. They take entirely different views. To them, 
what is even a respectable and obvious Christian, 
compared with any whom the world has learned to 
admire as a genius ? Yet the world's genius in poetry 
may be a libertine ; the world's genius in Action 
may shorten his life in intemperate and over-fed ani- 
malism ; the world's kings may be debauchees. For 
safety the world may have to imprison its greatest 
military genius on an ocean island ; and the name of 
its monetary genius may be a synonyme for rascality. 

But men of the world will admire their men of 
genius for all that. In comparison, what is the most 
indisputable Christian? With what an air of con- 
tempt they behold it, if a Christian is put in compar- 
ison with any of their men of genius ! And if the 
presumption be pressed, how ready are they with 
their scorn ! Heaven must be opened to their men 
of genius, how many soever Christians may have to 
vacate. 

And yet the simplest, humblest Christian has in 
his soul, by virtue of his union with God, and the 



230 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



inflo wills: of a divine life, the 2:erm of all ano^elic 
streDgth, beauty, and greatness. He may be tram- 
melled with many an ignorant prejudice, held under 
power of narrow views and low habits, may be very 
ignorant of the ways of the world , of the facts of nature 
and the truths of science. After learning the way of 
gaining a cheap livelihood, he may not know more 
than to feed his soul with some simplest truths of 
God's word : to draw near to his Saviour in penitent 
trust and prayer, and to show his love for man by 
acts whose only value lay in their kind intent. Dwarf 
him down to smallest pattern of manhood, make him 
the butt of ridicule, a standing laughing-stock, utterly 
unable to ap23reciate men of genius ; in a S23irit of 
caste put upon him all the indignities of prejudice 
and hate, and leave him to wri2:2:le out of his diffi- 
cutties as best he can; yet in God's view, — some- 
what clearer and broader than that of the men of the 
world, — there is in this man's soul capacities far 
transcendiug the gifts of genius, the germ of powers 
equalled only by an angel's. This God sees as clearly 
as we can see the oak in the germinate acorn. That 
marred and deflected image of Christ, which unspir- 
itualized vision cannot see, Christ can; and more, 
he has identified himself with that lowly believer, so 
that " inasmuch as ye did it not to him " in his need, 
ye did it not to Christ. The name of that believer, 
standing low in the world's esteem, stands on record 
in the Lamb's Book of Life. 

" Pursuit of heaven under difficulties," — the world 
may say. Yea, more than that, under impossibilities, 
if the way were to be found by his knowledge, the 



IDOLATRY OF GEXIUS. 



231 



achievement to be made by his wisdom, and the vic- 
tory gained by his strength. But for victory, for 
completed salvation, he has given himself in perfect 
trust and confiding love to the keeping of a Heavenly 
Father, who will not leave him to perish, more than 
a mother her child with rescue Avithin reach. It is 
no arbitrary appointment, only the natural issue of 
things, that heaven's gate should be open to any hum- 
blest believer in Christ. 

Eight with God, right in moral character, harmo- 
niously adjusted into the soul's true relations, accept- 
ing what Christ in his plan of salvation has provided 
and in his grace has offered, only time, opportunity, 
favoring conditions, and the maintained life of God 
in the soul, are needed to make that soul right, com- 
plete, harmonized, and matured in all the lengths, 
breadths, heights, and depths of his being; tran- 
scending all reach of genius, soaring with angels to 
all heights of knowledge, and entering into fellowshii^ 
with God, both in thought and feeling. 

Marred to utter spoiling are all who come short of 
this. 'Not adjusted to God in the way the gospel 
provides, they are out of harmony with the eternal 
laws and highest uses of the universe, out of adjust- 
ment Avith all its forces, out of conditions of highest 
and eternal welfare, and in oppugnance with reason 
and conscience. The vital elements of soul-life are 
wanting, moral recovery and moral adjustment. 
Genius cannot save them ; as well expect beauty of 
face to ward off disease, or a metaphysical argument 
to arrest the work of death. 

But, in exact accordance with the blindness and 



232 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



bewilderment of sin, the men of the world, in their 
idolatry of genius, take no such view of the matter ; 
they will not brook the idea that men of genius 
should fail of entrance into heaven ; that they should 
fail of whatever goodness and glory the future w^orld 
has. To a great majority of unbelieving men, this 
would not seem a question of practical importance. 
But it accords with their vanity, that each should 
count himself a genius by some method of measure- 
ment ; so they hold the question practical to them- 
selves. At least, they put forth the army of gifted 
unbelievers as a forlorn hope, whose success may 
gain them entrance. They mean that heaven shall 
be open to all who have access to good society here, 
and good society is their society. They put forward 
the world's men of genius, as if, beyond dispute, 
heaven could not do without them ; so they hope 
room will be made for all. 

They demand a reconstruction of religious systems , 
and insist that the judgment of the world shall be 
the arbiter of final destiny ; that other measures of 
judgment than moral character shall be applied; 
that the fact of sin shall be ignored ; that the need 
of redemption and recovery shall not be insisted 
upon. This sentiment, so congenial to the human 
heart, this feeling, so pervasive in the world, is an 
element of success in the Kingdom of Evil, likely 
to entrap many heedless and unwary souls. 



CHAPTEE XX. 



PEKSONAL HISTORY AND CHARACTER. 

THE Elements of Success in the Kingdom of 
Evil, hitherto considered, are convictions, im- 
pulses, and moral disturbances, working general 
derangement in society, corrupting its spirit, lower- 
ing its tone, and creating a bad atmosphere. Living 
in this general distemperature, in such unhealthy 
conditions, congenial to latent depravity, all souls 
become diseased in their action, whatever their orig- 
inal constitution. 

Of these general causes, there are others working 
derangement in ways more or less direct, and help- 
ing the Kingdom of Evil to success. Having already 
overgone the length designed, these are left without 
even enumeration, to look briefly into the realm of 
personal history and character, without which the 
subject gets no full treatment. 

As minds take in what they will naturally absorb 
of the malign influences before noted, they not only 
hold them in diflferent quantities, but make diverse 
selections, according to original bias, or as deter- 
mined by some event or condition of early life. 
These generally give positiveness of character and 

16 



234 



SUCCESS iOF EVIL. 



even idiosyncracies. Few come to adult life without 
showing some characteristic perversity, well known 
to acquaintances, which is an obstacle in the way of 
escape from the Kingdom of Evil, and thus an ele- 
ment of its success. 

The variety and shading of these personal peculi- 
arities reach towards the infinite ; no two alike, more 
than faces. One of a sort is enough. No descrip- 
tion, or even enumeration, of them is possible ; yet 
they are only varieties and modifications of a few 
cardinal perversities, like the varieties of nature from 
a few chemical simples. Consideration can here be 
aflforded only for some of those seed vices whose out- 
growths are so numerous and varied. 

Every study of the soul reveals manifold reasons 
why all men should be Christians, fully delivered 
out of the Kingdom of Evil and safely included in 
God's Kingdom of Eighteousness. Eeasons, how- 
ever invalid, there must be, why they are not. These 
are obstacles hindering the escape of all those yet in 
the Kingdom of Evil. What these hinderances are, 
and how valid, as a matter of personal concern, few 
inquire. They are unable to give any intelligent 
justification of their position, yet they stay in it most 
immovably. Of this, where cannot illustration be 
found ? We inquire for those hinderances which bar 
escape from the Kingdom of Evil, as found in per- 
sonal history and character. 

1. The sway of some appetite or lust. That 
many are under such control, is painfully evident to 
one who has given any study to the condition and 
phases of society. What these ap23etites and lusts 



PERSONAL HISTORY AND CHARACTER. 235 



will lead men to do, is utterly incredible to one who 
has given no study to their history. In sacrifice 
thereto there have been laid on the altar, wealth, 
health, position in society, success in life, all that 
men usually toil and struggle for. The mind is 
wearied and palled with surprises and astonishments 
at the power which lusts and appetites have over 
men; it would seem that, acted out as vices, they 
could exhibit no new monstrosity capable of exciting 
wonder. 

And how safely included in the Kingdom of Evil 
are the men over whom they dominate. The level on 
which such a man lives, the atmosphere he breathes, 
the views of life familiar to him, the companionship 
he enjoys, and the aims he seeks, bring him into 
af&nity and fellowship with evil. In his temper, 
modes of thought, and moods of feeling, he invites 
no saving influence of the gospel to reach and rec- 
tify him. If his aim had been to make his position 
in the Kingdom of Evil impregnable, he could not 
have done better. Hedged about, as so many are, 
with vices, and dominated over by lusts, they give 
the Kinofdom of Evil all the success their numbers 
can afford. 

2. The overgrowth of some ambition. Many have 
such intelligent views of life, such a sense of decency 
and self-respect, that they keep themselves aloof and 
above vice. The bewilderment of intoxication, the 
animalism of debauchery, and the craze of gambling, 
have no attractions for them. They are too wary 
for spendthrift vices, too prudent for those which are 
corrupting, and too self-respectful for those which 



236 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



are debasing. These are the decent men that make 
up the bulk of society. Yet in just these often is 
found the overgrowth of some ambition. In early 
life some incident fired their ambition, that has 
grown with their growth. 

One has been humiliated with poverty, or has 
been brought into some distress thereby. To escape 
from such woes, he has resolved to gain the power 
of wealth, not as a means of beneficence, but to 
environ himself with power. For this, nothing is 
permitted to stand in the way ; no hiuderance of 
moral principle, no better use of his powers, no 
courtesy of life, no disrepute, no endangerment of 
health, or possibly evaded criminality of law, will he 
allow to abate his struggle for wealth. 

The pride of another has been touched. Social 
caste has stung him with its scorn. From such 
exposure he resolves to escape at any cost. If to 
gain position in what is called "fashionable life," slav- 
ing for wealth, hard study, and the severe practice 
of accomplishments be necessary, time and effort will 
be given to these. In many a school of culture, as 
in many a place of business, will be found such aspi- 
rants. But if there be no taste or genius for accom- 
plishments, cheaper methods will be adopted. The 
regalia of fashionable dress is put upon the body, 
whatever offence be thus given to correct taste. The 
furniture and appointments of home must be of latest 
style ; and old but well-kept furniture, rich in dear 
associations of domestic life, must go to auction 
rooms and there lose their history. Worried with 
this strain after appearances, vain of whatever success 



PERSONAL HISTORY AND CHARACTER. 237 



is reached, puffed up with the admiring gaze of the 
silly, by the buzz of talk they make in resorts where 
fashion airs herself, and perhaps by the gossip of 
tattling newspapers, fired with such an ambition, 
breathing such an atmosphere, no living inspiration 
of the gospel can reach them ; and so they give all 
the success to the Kingdom of Evil that froth and 
frivolity can. 

Political ambition, or professional, has inoculated 
others with its virus. To reach the heights of 
power, or to be renowned in their calling, men have 
sacrificed whatever stood in the way. If they aspired 
to be at the head of the nation, to tread the halls of 
congress, to hold oflace in state or county, however 
high their ambition, or low, they are in contest for 
power. They want elevation, perhaps for mere self- 
aggrandizement, perhaps to tyrannize over their fel- 
lows ; for the love of power is congenial to the 
natural heart ; in a thousand houses there is tyranny 
enough wasted, which, had it concentration, could 
devastate the land with wars. 

There are men of even balance, whom no such 
ambitions disturb. Others, of such broad and clear 
views of life, of such generous spirit and Christian 
principle, that they are free from the all-devouring 
greed of personal ambition ; others escape such peril 
simply by being drones. But large numbers are left, 
who are filled with strong or weak ambitions. These 
put what powers they have to such stretch, nurse in 
themselves such egoism, as to keep them aloof from 
the gospel, and help the Kingdom of Evil to success. 

3. Unsuccessful attempts at being religious. Few 



238 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



men come to adult life without having made some 
attempt at being religious. It may have been under 
very unfavorable circumstances. Antecedent educa- 
tion may not have given them any true or well-defined 
conception of the object to be reached. Indeed, so 
confused are the minds of many, that they have no 
intelligent notion of what it is to be religious ; so 
blinded are some, that, were they to become Chris- 
tians, they would not know the fact, nor be able to 
tell what had been done in its accomplishment ; and 
this confusion of thought helps the Kingdom of Evil. 

Not knowing what is done in becoming religious, 
they have no intelligent conception of the ways and 
means of reaching that end ; so that, however sincere 
their purpose may be, their misapprehension of ways 
and means is likely to bar them from any desirable 
result. Many undertake to be religious from fear of 
consequences, or from pressure of a guilty conscience. 
The attempt lacks consideration ; is impulsive, and 
likely to be misguided. They do what they see 
others do, yet without apprehending their inward 
experience, and so fail in the chief thing. They have 
the fears which trouble others, have the emotions of 
guilt which others describe, and the purposes of 
obedience which others express. Borne along in the 
tide of feeling in which others participate, they are 
willing to do many acts commonly regarded charac- 
teristically Christian. Their emotions of fear and 
sorrow having subsided, as all emotions will, they 
infer that their calmness, instead of being exhaustion, 
is some rude form of peace and joy. With others 
they join the church ; not that they would have thought 



FEBSOXAL HISTOliY AND CHARACTER. 



239 



of so doing from their own wants or felt attractions ; 
not to make good their professions ; not to give proot 
of their sincerity, and to put themselves in the way 
of an earnest Christian life ; but simply because oth- 
ers join the church; and because, being Christians, 
they suppose that is the way to do. 

Accepting the judgment of the church on the 
doubtful question of their piet}^, they imagine they are 
now to move smoothly on in the Christian way. 
"\Ylien the contests of the Christian warfare begin, 
when they are set to the disruption of former habits 
and mastery of favorite sins, they find that a human 
will, even when strengthened by pride of consistency, 
is too weak for control of sin. They give way to 
former indulgences in evil, and show themselves to be 
what all along they had been, — fast in their original 
unconversion. Whether they have gone so far as to 
join the church, or had a less pronounced turn at 
being religious, they give proof to others, and are 
compelled at length to accept it themselves, that the 
root of the matter is not in them. 

Having passed through such an experience, some 
are utterly discouraged, thinking that a Christian life 
is bej^ond their reach ; others have willingly wronged 
their consciences, and are both sore and repugnant at 
all approaches of the gospel ; others feel that they 
have made fools of themselves, and are determined 
to guard against like exposure hereafter by keeping 
wholly aloof from the gospel. So they give bulk and 
corresponding success to the Kingdom of Evil. 

Were all men's biographies published, and the se- 
cret history of their hearts brought to light, perhaps 



240 



succ:ess of e\il. 



in every comraunitj would be found some who had 
made a most unfortunate attempt in being religious. 
By their failure they have placed themselves aloof 
from Christian influence, in antagonism to the gospel ; 
perhaps have deliberately made up their minds never 
again to attempt a religious life. They have ex- 
hausted their religious sensibility, blinded their 
minds, deadened their consciences, hardened their 
hearts, weakened the faith of others in respect to 
them, and created a past whose historic influences turn 
them away from the Christian path. To them, reli- 
gion is either impracticable, a delusion, or a matter 
of luck and chance, and they are not backward in 
uttering their convictions. Of the elements of suc- 
cess in the Kingdom of Evil, which the numbers and 
influence of such are, every church is painfully 
aware. 

4. Early training in loose morality. It is difficult 
to determine where is the turning-point which prac- 
tically settles a soul's destiny for salvation or ruin. 
In general, it is, consciously and obviously, in the 
experience of conversion, or in the soul's last rejec- 
tion of God's oflered mercy. Ordinarily, it is when 
a soul purposely relies on the mercy of God in Christ 
Jesus, or chooses to take the risk of not doing so; 
it is when a soul decides to be an obedient, or 
an incorrigibly rebellious subject of God's moral 
government. 

But when that question consciously comes up for 
settlement under the pressure of truth and the striv- 
ing of God's Spirit, how it shall issue may practi- 
cally have been determined long before, yea, in early 



PERSONAL HISTORY AND CHARACTER. 241 

life, in some conflict of the child with parental 
authority. How the mind will act under the pres- 
sure of religious obligation, how loyal it will be to 
truth, how sensitive and authoritative conscience will 
be, these are matters often settled in early life ; and 
when once settled, determine, at least go far to 
settle, the action of the soul, when it takes up for 
settlement, as a law of life, the question of loyalty 
or disloyalty to God. 

Let a child be trained into loose moralities, into 
ways that violate conscience, that make his mind dis- 
honest to truth, disloyal to obligation, and apart 
from the evil habits thus begotten, which fence his 
way of return to righteousness, his habits of mind, 
the whole run of his moral nature contributes to the 
success of the Kingdom of Evil. 

When we look into the current life of children and 
youth, see how many of them devoid of religious 
culture are not held by their parents even to such 
moralities as are necessary for the comfort of the 
family ; how imperious wilfulness, not yet tempered 
by reason and reflection, sways them as passion or 
pleasure dictates, and how loose are the moralities 
into which they grow, we find painful augury that 
the success to u^hich the Kingdom of Evil has 
reached is likely to be continued in the next gen- 
eration . 

5. The power of habit. It is a familiar thing in 
the experience of all adults, that they have fallen 
into modes of thought, feeling, speech, and conduct 
that are characteristic. The gait of some tell who 
they are, when too distant to discern the face. 



242 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



Methods of thought reveal authorship. Tones and 
inflections of voice, even out of natural pitch, reveal 
the speaker in the dark. Moral conduct gets into 
the same fixed and positive ways. Thus fashioned 
and hardened under long experience in sin, this 
rigidity of habit becomes almost an insuperable bar 
to religious life. If overcome so far as to enter the 
Christian way, how often is the young Christian 
found running in the grooves of his former life. He 
is not less pained than surprised at the oath which 
his lips utter so instinctively, at the imperiousness 
of his resents, and at the congeniality with which he 
drops into his former habits of sin. 

To one who knows the power of habit by any 
attempt at revolution, it stands before him as one ot 
the obstacles to entrance on a religious life that it 
will require changes, to be opposed at every step by 
the obstinacy of habit. The uncomfortableuess of 
disturbing these habits, doubts about success in it, 
and the disrepute of failure, hold many a man fast 
in the Kingdom of Evil. The longer he stays, every 
added year gives greater rigidity to habits and envi- 
rons him more completely in their power, so that 
this obstinacy of habit gives stability to the success 
the Kingdom of Evil has gained. 

6. Misapprehended or false testimony of church 
members. Some who have made no attempt at 
being religious, and so come to no failure in it, 
have had an experience equally disastrous, though 
not so destructive of personal integrity. They have 
been deceived by the misapprehended or false testi- 
mony of church members. This testimony may have 



PERSONAL HISTORY AND CHARACTER. 243 



seemed false to their minds, merely because thej^ 
misapprehended its facts and spirit. All that was 
said and done by the Christian witness, they have 
not known. Its essential spirit and meaning they 
have not caught. They have not submitted the tes- 
timony to cross-examination. What seemed unchris- 
tian and weakened their faith in religion, would have 
had an entirely different aspect, could they have 
known all about the facts, the witness, and especially 
the inside of his life. Or the testimony may have 
been positively false ; given either by a hypocrite, or 
by one who at length proves himself a real Christian, 
though in the matter in hand acting ignorantly, 
under the bias of prejudice, or in a state of lamen- 
table declension. Wide extremes in moods and 
frames of feeling, the sway of diverse principles, 
entertainment of very different views, and exposure 
to widely various influences, are common to all men. 
From these the Christian is not exempt. Such ex- 
tremes are in human nature, in the run of life, and 
religion does not immediately exclude them. 

So both by the hypocrite and imperfect Christian, 
sometimes by an entire church, wrongs have been 
done, wrongs in the matter of reputation, requiring 
the testimony of years of faithful living to secure 
rectification ; wrongs in the matter of property, 
amounting sometimes to an oppression of the weak 
and defenceless ; wrongs that have despoiled the 
widow of home and the fatherless of inheritance ; 
wrongs that have blasted reputation, that have 
crushed hopes, sacrificed virtue, separated husband 
and wife, broken up families, and sent the injured to 



244 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



a speedy grave. These wrongs have been committed 
by those who stood representatives, perhaps public 
advocates, of religion. And while their inflicted suf- 
fering continues, or even a remembrance of it, the 
false dilemma in which the sufferers and their friends 
have permitted themselves to be placed, is, — either 
that religion allowed such things, or else is a delu- 
sion, in not having power to prevent them. 

Such wrongs might be expected in a world where 
ignorance and misconception, both of facts and mo- 
tives, prevail, and where sin works so freely. And 
the consequent misapprehensions we may expect in 
the Kingdom of Evil. And thousands there are to- 
day, whom the sufferance of such wrongs, real or 
imaginary, has maddened against the Christian reli- 
gion in a way beyond probable pacification. They 
hold religion, its Sabbaths, its professors, its minis- 
ters, its worshipping assemblies, and its sacraments, 
in fancied contempt and positive hatred. They have 
barred all escape for themselves from the Kingdom 
of Evil. Scarcely immoralities and foulest vices 
could place them further from the Kingdom of Right- 
eousness. That to the Kingdom of Evil such should 
be an element of success is no matter of dispute or 
surprise. 

7. Then a large number are blinded as to the 
nature and necessity of religion. There is no high 
and grand theme, capable of taxing all highest pow- 
ers of mind and touching all deepest feelings of 
heart, to a true and full knowledge of which men 
come by instinct and without study. Such a matter 
is religion. And although to all sincere and rightly- 



PERSONAL mSTORY AND CHARACTER. 245 



acting minds intent upon being true to themselves 
in the highest relations of life, the substantial veri- 
ties of religion are within reach, yet such minds are 
few. By the many, religion is not understood in its 
nature and necessity, because they give it no candid 
and earnest study. Banishing from their minds the 
infinite realities that are around them, looking not 
upward to what is above them, nor forward to what 
is before them, forgetting all highest relations and 
deepest wants of the soul, th^y can, in ordinary con- 
ditions, live very comfortable lives without religion; 
so they give it little thought and less study. 

Upon few minds come not some shading of this 
darkness. In its penumbra, if not in its densest 
shadow, can be found men of high culture and 
women of great brilliancy. This fact is a part of 
sin's curse, — its cause in part. If the Kingdom of 
Evil is to have success, here we might expect to 
find one element of it. 

It would confuse to detail all these facts of per- 
sonal history and character which give success to the 
Kingdom of Evil. By some evil companionship, 
casually formed and soon ripened into maturity, one 
and another is held fast in the Kingdom of Evil. 
Manifold debasing pleasures, vast array of demoral- 
izing art, floods of corrupting literature, — O, the 
world is full of the enginery of evil ! 

8. Mention will be made of one other fact of 
personal character, — obstinacy of will. It is diffi- 
cult for some men to get their own consent to any 
change in their thoughts, feelings, plans, or conduct, 
however urgent the reasons. They have no grace 



246 



SUCCESS OF EVIL. 



of pliancy. The cast-iron rigidity of their wills 
holds them fast to the evil into which they first were 
moulded. Only by refusion and remoulding can 
they be changed. They hold on to a course, simply 
because they have set their faces in that direction, 
even after they see the folly of it. A determination 
once formed, they count as so much capital invested ; 
and if the speculation be clearly seen unprofitable, 
they hold it as a matter of honesty with themselves 
to carry it through and take the consequences. They 
may as well be left to their course, for persuasion is 
as vain as if expended on the law of gravity. Pity 
they could not have been started right, then might 
the world have seen the perfect steadfastness of up- 
rightness. 

But starting in the wrong way, their immovable 
obstinacy gives stability to the Kingdom of Evil. 
They came into that Kingdom by inheritance ; and 
though far from its deep corruptions and wild fanat- 
icisms, though living in the moralities that border 
the adjacent Kingdom of Eighteousness, they cannot 
be induced either to abandon the Kingdom of Evil, 
or to enter more heartily into its spirit and design, 
simply because they never permit themselves to be 
persuaded out of their course. No one knows the 
rigidity of an obstinate will, unless he has expended 
all the arguments of the gospel, and all the tender 
anxieties of a Christian heart, in the vain attempt to 
turn such an one to Christ. In this he gets a mean- 
ing of the word impossible never before conceived. 
Once converted, these men make their obstinacy of 
will, somewhat softened, an element of strength in 



PERSONAL HISTORY AND CHARACTER. 247 



their Christian firmness. Otherwise they are muni- 
ments of the Kingdom of Evil, giving stability to its 
success. 

Some obstacles or other, often more than one, hin- 
der escape from the Kingdom of Evil in the case of 
vast multitudes. What thus hinders escape is a mat- 
ter of such grave concern, that, judging from the 
importance of the matter, every sinner would be sup- 
posed to know and fully appreciate what holds him 
so resistlessly in subordination to the Kingdom of 
Evil. Seemingly, this he would find out, simply 
from the curiosity every man is entitled to have con- 
cerning himself. Yet the Kingdom of Evil is seldom 
disturbed by any such investigations. 

Some of these, or like hinderances, keep the vast 
majority of men, hitherto, from being Christians. It 
may be the enormous development of some appetite, 
or lust; the dominant ascendency of some ambition, 
as for riches, power, fashion, or pleasure; some un- 
successful attempt at being religious ; early training 
in loose morality ; the power of habit ; misapprehen- 
sion of false testimony of church members ; blindness 
as to the nature and necessity of religion ; obstinacy 
of will, or other like obstacles not considered in this 
chapter. Hinderances there are of great force, since 
they hold men so firmly against reasons whose valid- 
ity and importance they cannot deny. There is 
ample warrant for that curiosity about themselves, 
which shall lead them to find exactly and measure 
accurately the obstacles that fence them into the 
Kingdom of Evil, and out of the Kingdom of Christ 
and its great salvation. 



248 



SUCCUSS OF EVIL. 



These reasons, Avhich keep men from the way of 
salvation, and the before considered elements of suc- 
cess in the Kingdom of Evil, awaken an inexpressible 
sadness in every rightly-acting mind, only to be 
deepened by others not taken into view. To combat 
these reasons, when attempted, has been wholly inci- 
dental to their full presentation. The aim has been 
to study the facts of the condition, and to find, as best 
we could, why the Kingdom of Evil, against reason, 
revelation, conscience, all highest powers in man, 
all deepest wants of the heart, and against best 
welfare of society, has a success found nowhere else. 
The reasons given, though no justification, show how 
such success has come, and suggest some ways of 
combating it. 



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